Cast Iron
by Foxy'sGirl
Summary: She's a would be celebrity chef with a failing cooking show. He's a small batch cheese maker who won't play along. Hiccstrid. Cooking show AU. The AU so crazy it just might work.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a drabble series I started on tumblr, and it started to turn into something more (and something pretty great, if I can say that without sounding horribly self-promoting), and it got long enough that I figured it would be nice to post it all in one place. **

00000

Apparently, she's not connecting. Whatever that means.

Astrid Hofferson has never had a disciplinary meeting in her life. Sure, she's dealt with criticism, professional criticism that helped her learn. She's had jealous criticism, with its cruel sting and inflationary bite. She's had half-hearted praise that told her she was _proficient_. But now she's holding a document detailing the finer points of her possible termination.

She's not someone who gets fired.

She was one of the youngest James Beard award winners ever, executive chef in a well-established New York restaurant by twenty five. A restaurant which earned two Michelin When they offered her the cooking show it was an obvious yes, it'd pay enough for her to save up for her own restaurant. It promised fewer hours and she'd have more time for all those abandoned hobbies she's nearly forgotten.

They shipped her off, away from the test kitchens to the small seaside _village_ of Berk, Maine, where the fish is fresh and the sea breeze is constant.

This was…this was supposed to be a sure thing, but it's all going _wrong_. Everything is wrong. She's not connecting, the numbers are dismal and reviews say she's cold.

She's not cold, she's precise. Her technique is perfect and isn't she supposed to be teaching people? Isn't that the whole point?

And now she has to drive her rusty-ass rental car across this tiny, hell-hole of a town to pick up the script for her last-chance episode before she gets _cut_ and they replace her. Probably with some bubbly young mother with a bag of frozen shrimp and a microwave. Someone marketable, someone who smiles on cue without looking like Hannibal Lector, as the show's loud-mouthed production assistant so elegantly put it.

She's not paying enough attention, she's staring out of the passenger window a the slow crashing waves against the shore, the beachside she's still not used to. She's supposed to make mussels and she can't for the life of her figure out how to spread the prep for simple mussels in white wine out to half an hour. Not even the twenty two minutes she gets after commercial interruptions.

She takes off from a stop sign without looking and a clatter snaps her attention back to the road, where a small black horse is rearing and huffing. Its rider pats its neck and frowns at her through the windshield before freezing and almost losing his seat when the horse rears again.

The last thing she needs is to be late to meet her producer right after a damn disciplinary hearing. Her hand hover over the horn and the rider glares at her this time, eyes oddly piercing even though they're beneath the brim of his helmet.

He holds his hand towards her, the universal symbol for hold on, and says something to the horse. It calms almost instantly, nostrils flaring wide and red, all four feet finally anchored on the ground. And then they walk away, the man still patting the horse's neck.

Astrid makes it on time, barely, jogging into Finn Ingermann's temporary office doorway in the back of her test kitchen trailer. The big, blonde man is looking through a stack of papers, like always, and he smiles when he sees her, almost inappropriately timid for a man of his importance.

He discovered _Eret _after all.

Eret, who's already a single name entity in the cooking world. Like Emeril or Elvis or Cher. The Beyonce of Barbecue.

Eret with the sloppy knife skills and the heavy hand with the pepper, if Astrid remembers the Cordon Bleu correctly. Which she does. Then again, he was always sort of charming, even with his clumsy blades and smug grin. Maybe because of the smug grin, to be honest.

Finn Ingermann struck gold either way, and in his quiet, bookish way, he seems determined to do it again.

"Good morning, chef," he pushes trendy glasses up his nose. It's obvious that someone styled him at some point, probably before all of those Iron Chef judging appearances but he didn't really understand or keep it up.

"Yeah," Astrid debates over pleasantries for a moment before sitting down across from him with her lip clamped in her teeth. "So. Mussels. How am I supposed to stretch mussels in wine over half an hour?"

"Ah, so you noticed that." Finn laughs nervously, "you need to connect with the town before you can connect with the audience."

00000

**Hiccup shows up next chapter. I promise. Stick with the premise guys, stick with it. **


	2. Chapter 2

**You still with me? Gouda. **

00000

"An' it's best if ye just shut up and give them what they want, alright?" Gobber thwacks Hiccup on the side of the head to gain his attention. "Are ye listening'? This is huge fer the store."

"Right, some chef is going to come in here and I talk about cheese for five seconds, sell her some bread. Smile." Hiccup pastes a fake smile onto his face and gestures towards the refrigerator case, bizarrely decorated with wood paneling. "Stay behind the counter."

"That might be comforting if I thought ye had any intention of listenin' to me." Gobber sighs and shakes his head, giving Hiccup one last withering stare before stalking towards the storage room in the back.

"I still don't know why you can't do this!" Hiccup calls after his boss, one last little hope of getting out of this and getting back to the barn. Gobber pretends not to hear him.

Wonderful.

He's never really been the front of the house sort, he's more of an experimental type. He started at Gobber's store for the same reason Gobber did, because selling over-priced local goods to tourists is the only job in this town aside from fishing and according to his father, he wasn't really made for fishing. Plus, the bakery is nice, one of the warmest places in the whole damn town during the nine months of freezing sleet and snow.

But what he didn't expect was the cheese. It started with ricotta and mozzarella, Berk's finest, Gobber's family recipes. But then it was importing gouda and goat cheese and realizing that he could do it better with some enzymes and some of that fancy Berk sea salt. And now, as much as his father hates it, his Maine Cheddar is competing with the lobster.

Hiccup sets his shoulders and walks behind the counter, staring down at the selection, that five year aged sharp white from his very first batch. As much as he doesn't want to talk to some hoity-toity network chef, it could be the publicity he needs to get out of this town. Go somewhere warm, get some cheap land and a few dairy cows. Toothless would love that, it'd be better than his box stall here.

Because in Berk, if a horse is blind or a boy is small, it's best just to wedge them in a box, right? Flick on the heat and call it fair.

Wow, all of these thoughts are going to make it so easy to fake a smile. He should keep this up, this is wonderful.

Snotlout has impeccable timing, as always, and the front door swings open with a jingle that ceased to be charming years ago, towing a cart full of ice and fish over to the ready freezer case on the opposite wall.

"Nice and toasty, cuz?" The stocky man grins and rubs raw, red hands together, wrenching the lid off of his cart and unloading fish and small nets full of shellfish onto the ice.

"And don't you smell like week old fishguts."

"It's my natural scent." He jeers, "so I heard you get to be on TV. Are they going to do your makeup first?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm just selling some chef some cheese." Hiccup leans down and starts rearranging his wares, tucking the neatly wrapped packages into straighter lines.

"Some chef?" Snot shakes his head, "you're so not ready for this. It's _Astrid Hofferson_, dude." He says the name with such reverence that Hiccup freezes, looking towards his cousin with eyebrows raised.

"I didn't know you were so culinary."

"She's like number one on Maxim's 'chefs to nail' list."

"I didn't realize that was a thing."

"Well, it isn't. Yet." Snotlout crosses his arms, fingers glistening with half frozen fish blood and a few wrenched free scales. "It should be though."

"Are you done?" Hiccup shakes his head, "the film crew is supposed to be here soon and I don't think there's room for your ego in the script."

"I was thinking I might stick around and—"

"And scare the hot chef away?" Hiccup ushers his cousin towards the door. "Aren't our dads waiting for you?"

Snotlout finally leaves after a few more minutes of falsely aimless searching around the store, not a moment too soon, because the film crew bustles in, barely acknowledging him as they set up reflectors and microphones around him. Hiccup is almost apathetic about the whole thing, honestly. Snotlout isn't brilliant and he tends to be aware of a certain kind of woman, the kind who likely won't appreciate the sharp bite of Maine cheddar, and this is all feeling very futile.

What's the point in smiling if it's not going to help his sales? Sure, Gobber's goofy grin can get anyone to stay and look around, but Hiccup's tends to work less frequently. He has the kind of smile that tends to work on blue haired old ladies and middle aged women on Thelma and Louise road trips while scaring Snotlout's type right into Snotlout's eager arms.

The people around him settle down, and a lanky man with long blonde hair counts down, pressing a button on a radio at his belt. Hiccup barely has time to recognize the rusty car pulling up outside before the door is opening and a blonde woman with a canvas shopping bag and a decidedly forced smile wipes all of those routine sales pitches from his mind.

"…wonderful fresh products here in Berk. I'm so lucky to have all of these fruits of the sea so close. Good morning, Gobber—"

Hiccup tears his eyes away from the curve of her waist in a buttoned tight black coat, frowning at her, "I'm not Gobber."

"Oh." She's pretty. Not Snotlout's usual overdone type, all natural freckles and pale pink lips. Her golden hair is loosely braided over her shoulder, glinting like it's giving off its own light.

She's even prettier when she's baffled. That little frown is fantastic, her obvious discomfort so relatable as she leans away from the camera. "When…when did Gobber hand over the keys? That guy…I thought that guy would be here forever. He's serious about his store," she turns that smile back onto him, a little _desperate_. "What do I call you?"

He looks past her, astounded that it's even possible until his eyes lock onto that rusty bumper. He recalls her at that stop light, honking at him, trying to get Toothless under control, to explain what the horse couldn't see.

"Hiccup," he pops the p. It's a childhood nickname that only Snot still clings to, but something about the stern natural set of her lips makes him want to hear her say it. He wants her to say it on camera.

"Hiccup? You seriously want me to call you Hiccup?" She raises her eyebrow and laughs, holding her hand towards the young man with the camera, "cut for a moment, I need to explain something to this guy."

"No, this is great," the camera man spins a dial beside his lens.

"Hiccup," she looks around for a moment, like someone is pranking her. Hiccup likes the way her eyes narrow, the way her back stiffens. "I'm looking for about a pound of your freshest Berk Mussels."

"Mussels?" Hiccup laughs. "You're here for mussels?"

"Yes, I'm making an absolutely classic—"

"You're standing in front of this cheese counter and you're here for mussels?" Hiccup laughs. Gobber must have known. That crafty old bastard, leaving it to Hiccup to scare away the pretty chef.

The angry, gorgeous chef who wouldn't step anywhere near Maxim, if Hiccup knows anything at all.

"Let's save the cheese for next time," her false smile grits slightly and she glances towards the camera. "That fish looks so fresh. I take it those are today's mussels."

"All of it's fresh." Hiccup clears his throat and picks up a bottle of olive oil on his counter, holding it towards her like a big city sommelier. "Even this thirty dollar bottle of oil, imported from some prince's backyard in Greece, or something."

"I'm sure it's wonderful." She barks a laugh, and he wonders what it would sound like if it were real.

"We have a great merlot that I put with mussels all the time, would you like a sample?" He grins because he knows he has her. Her nose screws up and her eyebrows furrow, blue eyes freezing to ice for a split second before she forces her expression flat.

"The classic is _white _wine."

"Just helping you mix it up."

00000


	3. Chapter 3

00000

Astrid blinks at the report, printed out to look especially official. The numbers across the top of the page make very little sense on their own, but each time the production assistant explains them they seem to sink in a little deeper.

"…yeah, I mean, Finn is pretty thrilled. Your numbers are even higher for the second viewing, too, which is weird," the woman cleans her teeth with an unpolished fingernail, slumping back against the counter.

"So…I'm not cancelled?" Astrid knows the answer, but she still needs to hear it somehow, needs to affirm that this whole plunge wasn't just a big mistake.

"Nope." The woman shrugs, "and Finn wants the cheese guy back too—"

"What?" Astrid's hands clamp down on the paper, impressing wrinkles into the sheet.

"Me _likey_ cheese guy, can I come with you to go talk to him?"

"What are you talking about?" She laughs because this must be a joke. "Finn wants the cheese guy back? What does that mean? Do I just have to go buy some cheese or—it's a seafood show, I can't have some cheese guy messing everything up."

A misunderstanding, this must be some epic misunderstanding.

"The audience loves him. Well," the woman takes the sheet back and frowns at it. "Women between 35 and 60 love him, and that's a huge audience for us."

"I don't care what my mom likes," Astrid curls her lip.

"Your mom has good taste. Did you _see_ cheese man's ass? Like two squeaky little orbs of mozzarella. I'd grate that up and put it on a sausage pizza."

"What are you saying?"

"Can I go talk to him with you? Finn wants to talk to him about next week's filming. I have a contract or something that we're supposed to deliver to him." She waves a yellow folder around briefly. "We should go do that."

"Can I see the contract?"

"We should just talk about it in the car." She shrugs and leafs through the papers.

"You just want to come to see that…that _imposter's_ ass. No. I can do it myself."

"We should have girly time or some shit, probably. We're the only two chicks on set, in case you haven't noticed. Except for Phlegma the coffee room sniffler." She holds out her hand, smudged with what looks like printer ink around her cuticles. "You can call me Ruffnut."

"Ruffnut." Astrid bites her lip, debating because there's something in the other woman's firm handshake, something relatable. Hard and familiar, the handle of her favorite filet knife. "Can I see the contract?"

"Ugh, are you a reader?" Ruffnut hands over the envelope, finally, and Astrid takes a second to stack it neatly with her creased ratings report.

"I'm going to go read this contract," to cheese man. "I want to be sure that I know what I'm getting into before he signs it."

It's not a lie. Not really.

It's tact, the same sort of tact that got her these ratings. She edges towards the door of the test kitchen, patting the contract.

"If you need any help doctoring the fine print," Ruffnut waggles blonde eyebrows. "I can do that."

"You're terrifying," Astrid grins, the first smile in Berk that isn't forced and yanked out of her. "I think we might get along."

With her white lie in place, Astrid drives across town, back through the single stoplight swaying in the sea breeze on main street, and pulls into the small gravel parking lot of the town's only store. Apparently there's a Walmart Supercenter fifteen miles up the coast, but she hasn't needed to visit yet. Part of her hopes she won't ever have to, there's something committed about making the trip.

She should sit in the car and study the contract, figure out what she's going to say when that…what did he make her call him again? Burp?

Hiccup.

Yes, he made her call him Hiccup and it made the final cut for some reason, her pinched little grimace trying to hold it together as he got all uppity about his precious cheese. She likes cheese man better than Hiccup.

Suddenly, she wants to get it over with more than she wants to be prepared and she climbs out of the car, constantly wet gravel soaking through the fabric side panel of her shoes and fueling her indignation. She stomps into the shop, cheery doorbells completely out of sync with her fuming, and cheese man looks up at her from behind his cheese counter.

It's disappointing.

Without the cameras and the glare and the fuss, he's deflated somehow, just a vaguely recognizable skinny guy with incomprehensible freckles. There's not enough sun here for freckles, not really, and she hopes they mean that he doesn't really stick around.

His face falls when he sees her, eyebrows perched low over bright green eyes, and she almost falters. The expression is an odd cross between daring her closer and warding her away. She chooses the first option, stalking the rest of the way across the room and dropping the contract on the glass counter between his hands.

"Did you talk them into this?" The accusation doesn't hit her until it's out of her mouth, but then it's obvious. Of course. "That's why you—you want—Do you think this is going to help you sell something?"

"What are you talking about?" He blinks at her, irrationally long eyelashes giving him a distinct resemblance to Bambi. Astrid feels like the hunter and it only makes her angrier.

"What do you know about this?"

"It's an envelope." The corner of his mouth twitches into half of a smile. "not recycled paper. Have you thought about your impact on the planet?"

"It's—" she pauses to yank the contract out, skimming the first three lines. "Really? This is a contract for you to make an appearance on three of my next five episodes." She reads further before dropping the contract on the counter again, "_in_ the kitchen. You're supposed to be in the kitchen for three of my next five episodes."

"What?" He snatches the papers off of the counter, bending down to read them, his lips moving slowly along with some passages that she assumes he's reading twice. "With a merchandising contract."

"What?" She leans over the counter, jutting her head between his and the papers. "You get merchandising?"

"Ugh, they want me to call it Astrid and Haddock. No one is going to buy cheese named Astrid and Haddock."

"Why Haddock?" She scans the contract for a clue.

"It's my last name. How the hell did they get my last name?" He huffs, and she's acutely aware of his chest puffing out a feeble extra inch. "Gobber."

"What?" She looks up at him, closer than she remembers getting. "What the hell is a gobber?"

"The guy who owns this store? You've talked to him…" he frowns, "one-armed and booming? Jesus, no wonder you need my help, you forgot _Gobber_."

"I don't need your help." She scoffs. "And it's a whole new town, I don't know everyone yet."

"It's…" he sighs and runs his hand back through his slightly overgrown hair. The edge of the counter is sharp against her ribs and she stands up straight, looking around the store, empty aside from a couple of old men in the small liquor section near the back. "Why are you offering me this contract anyway?"

"I'm not," she glares at him. "My producer is."

"I meant you as in 'Astrid Hofferson and Associates', obviously you don't want me around—never mind." He shrugs, a strange bouncy thing, and gestures broadly at the contract. "Why this?"

"My ratings went through the roof. My producer thinks it's because of you."

His grin borders on cocky, and she wants to punch him.

"Can I borrow a pen?"

00000

**He's so ridiculous guys, I love him. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Things get cute, y'all. **

00000

"Toothless!" Hiccup grins when he walks into the barn, patting an eager to please dapple gray on the nose and walking all the way back to the last stall on the row. Toothless nickers his greeting, bobbing his head and pacing across the floor with three even steps. "What's up bud? Oof—Hey, pushy pushy." Hiccup laughs and slides the stall door open, stepping around the horse's head and patting his neck.

Toothless snorts and taps carefully backwards, turning to press his face to Hiccup's chest with a grunt.

"How are your eyes doing today?"

The horse's once deep brown eyes are now fully covered by a milky green film, glossier for the lack of pupil, like a strange, rare gemstone. Hiccup strokes Toothless's cheek. "I hope you've been having a better day than me, bud. Everything…ugh, remember that chef I told you about?"

Toothless snorts, directly translatable as 'how could I forget? You only yapped about her for an hour and a half.' Hiccup takes the curry comb from his jacket pocket and scratches Toothless's chest with it, rubbing gently against the grain of the fur.

"Oh, so you'll listen to me if I'm grooming you?" Hiccup shakes his head and moves carefully around Toothless's side, tugging the brush across his coat and pulling off clumps of thin summer fur. "So. The chef. The incredibly…stubborn chef," he glares at the horse before he can snort, "how do you manage to get so filthy in a stall, dude? Is someone smuggling you mud?"

Toothless stomps an impatient hoof and Hiccup scratches his armpit with the comb.

"Anyway. The chef. They want me on her show again, for some reason. She said that her producer thought I raised ratings." Hiccup laughs, the miserable sound of a man out of his depth, and leans his head against Toothless's side. "I doubt it, but she looked so pissed off about it that I had to commit to more." Hiccup sighs and walks around Toothless's flank, patting the horse above his tail to avoid getting kicked. "I know, I know. I have such a face for television, you don't have to tell me."

A few more moments of silent grooming, small tufts of black fur falling on the stall floor.

"She's really…her eyes sort of light up when she's pissed. And she stands up really straight, like…like she's about to spit fire at me or something. Obviously, it's making me do stupid things like commit to being on three episodes of a cooking show."

Toothless nods, _laughing_ at Hiccup's anguish. Laughing.

"Hilarious."

A rushed man with a slightly squeaky voice calls Hiccup two days later and gives him meticulous instructions to the test kitchen trailer. It's all very ominous and he has to be there at seven am, displacing his morning ride with Toothless, but the zeroes on the check promised in that contract shut him up and keep him pliant. He'll apologize to Toothless later, almost any crime can be forgotten for three peppermints and fifteen minutes eating the barn's still grassy lawn.

Hiccup walks up to the trailer, hands tucked deep into his pockets to avoid the frigid ocean breeze as he waffles one last time, staring at the chipping white paint on the door. What if…what if that contract is a joke? This doesn't exactly look like the trailer of an international network conglomerate, with its cinderblock foundation and generator whirring away, a few years out of date. It looks more like a meth lab than a production studio, and he doubts that the double wide trailer has enough room to film in, anyway.

Maybe it's all a hoax.

Maybe it's a really elaborate trap and Astrid Hofferson is the world's least stealthy serial killer and she preys on small town grocery store employees that she can thrill with a glare.

He steps up to the door and knocks, jumping back in surprise when a lanky blonde woman wrenches it open almost immediately.

"You're on time. I _like_ punctuality." She leans on the doorframe and smiles at him with just a little too much teeth.

"Is this…I mean, the directions were really specific—"

"Yeah, you're in the right place."

"So do I come in? Or are you just going to stare at me?" He shifts, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.

"Let him in, Ruffnut." Astrid calls from inside the trailer and the woman in the door deflates and steps out of the way, gesturing into the trailer.

"_Fine_."

Hiccup climbs the stairs and squints, looking back outside at the beachside dawn, the ramshackle outside of the trailer. The inside looks exactly like a suburban kitchen should, all clean wooden countertops and bright white appliances, a farm sink on the back wall and a gas stove on the island. The same camera man from the other day is talking to Ruffnut and setting up cameras and Astrid is in the kitchen, opening cupboards and rearranging pans. She looks at him, impatience etched on her face along with something like nerves.

"Do you know anything about bouillabaisse?" She drums her hands on the counter.

"It's fish stew or something, right?"

"Something." She frowns, biting her lip. "Can you cook?"

"I make cheese." He shrugs, scuffing his shoes on the mat and wondering if this is how she felt in his store. Marginalized, out of his element. He should have told her his real name.

"So what…boiling? Stirring?" It's not mean but not really curious either. He feels like one of the pans she was just rearranging, a tool in the kitchen.

This is all a big mistake, isn't it?

She's too pretty, still slightly groggy under immaculately applied makeup. He sees a cup of coffee on the counter in a bright yellow mug and imagines her sipping from it. He wonders what she looks like first thing in the morning and flushes, picturing her asleep, that stern mask melted to nothing.

"Fermenting."

"Are you going to hack off your finger if I ask you to chop some garlic?" She runs a hand through her hair and tugs a few long blonde strands from her braid. "I don't—I don't know how to do this with someone else."

"We can take it slow," he blurts without thinking and she stares at him for a second, that near murderous light in her eyes flashing for a second before she smiles. Real. Dazzling. His head throbs and he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets.

"Come prove it to me," she drags a cutting board in front of her and steps aside, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Prove what?"

"Prove that you can chop something without cutting a finger off," she reaches under the counter and pries a clove off of a head of garlic, slamming it onto the board a little too hard and tossing the papery white part in the trash.

She gestures to the knife block without looking, obviously at home in this kitchen, utterly comfortable.

"I have to put on a show chopping up garlic?"

"That's _exactly_ what we're doing here," she taps her foot, "did you even read that contract?"

"I didn't get much further than the payment page."

"Ah. Well, I understand that." She waves him over, an efficient and almost friendly flick of her fingers. "You can leave your jacket by the door."

"You know, this isn't what I expected the inside of this trailer to look like," he changes the subject away from his questioned, honestly questionable skills and unzips his coat, hanging it from its hood on a hook next to the door and walking towards the chopping block.

"It's a nice setup," she watches him, legitimately impressed when he chooses the large chopping knife and squares himself in front of the board. "Normally…most of these things are filmed back at headquarters in New York, but Finn—my producer—he's…I'm sure you've heard of Eret."

"I can't say I have." Hiccup glances at her, fidgeting with the handle of the knife and moving the garlic clove to the exact center of the cutting board.

"My producer's last show is really successful, he can kind of do whatever he wants but people are expecting great things." She shakes her head and rests it on her hand before leaning back and draining her coffee. "Apparently he wants you in my kitchen in some trailer in Berk, Maine."

She steps up beside him and adjusts his grip on the knife, her fingers nudging his against the cool wooden handle, "don't manhandle it. It's sharp, you don't need to force it."

"Can you just let me do this, please?"

She raises her hands in mock surrender, eyes flashing again. He waits for her to remember who he is, to snap at him. She yawns.

"Oh, am I boring you?"

"Little bit." Astrid scoffs, pushing lightly on his shoulder. His arm tingles like she shocked him. "Why don't I just show you and you can do the next one?"

"I know how to chop up garlic." He raises the knife and she shakes her head.

"You're going to get peel all over everything." She shoulders him out of the way and takes the knife. "Ok. Garlic clove," she holds it up like a saleswoman, "Set it on the board, chop off both ends." The knife moves like an extension of her arm, quick and precise, impossibly close to her fingertips.

"Peel the clove," she runs the tip of the knife down the side of the clove and peels it one handed, dropping the paper with the ends of the clove. "Smash it with the side of the knife—" Bang! A sharp, quick pound of her hand on the side of the knife before she lifts it and rocks back and forth across the flattened clove almost faster than he can see. "And it's minced. Do you think you can do that?"

"Maybe you are a serial killer."

"What?" She holds the knife towards him and he takes it, setting it down on the counter.

"Outside I was wondering if—this trailer looks like a murderous hideout. It's all secluded and now you have all these knives—"

"You thought I was luring you into a serial killer trap?" Astrid crosses her arms.

"Let me guess, you were going to toy with me, but now you have to kill me immediately." He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "This is unfortunate."

"_Hiccup_."

His head jerks up at the nickname and he almost corrects her. It's ridiculous, it's so out of tune with everything almost friendly going on here.

"Prove that you can chop this up without blood." She nudges another clove of garlic at him.

He notices the camera man, still and filming in the corner, Ruffnut whispering something in his ear. Hiccup turns to the cutting board and picks up the knife, keenly aware of Astrid's cool blue gaze boring into his hands.

00000


	5. Chapter 5

On the first Saturday morning of fall reruns on Food Network, it hits Astrid that she's been in Berk for two months. She's five episodes into her first season, filming the last two with _Hiccup_ next week and utterly frustrated because his two appearances thus far are the _only_ significant blips in her ratings. She doesn't get it. Their interactions are polite at best, what with the way he's taken to calling her chef and trying to upsell every ridiculous item in that stupid store every time she pops in for groceries.

Her rental arrangement, while comfortable, isn't exactly opulent and she's stuck flipping between the fishing channel and the news between mouthfuls of cereal until her own title sequence catches her attention. The peppy song practically crafted to get stuck in people's heads, the scenic shots of fishing boats and the beach, her in a hideous yellow raincoat.

Her eyes widen at the end of the credits, 'special guest: Charlie 'Hiccup' Haddock'. It was there the whole time. He's smiling grudgingly on screen, his teeth slightly gapped and crooked in a way she hasn't noticed before and she clicks on the guide to see what episode it is. Bouillabaise. Of course.

She scheduled with Finn to watch this at least twice, but it ended up going to final cut without her input due to a string of mysterious conflicts, but they had enough decent material that she wasn't too worried about it. _Hiccup_ is actually better at making a big deal out of something tasty than she is, and the recipe has been downloaded more than any of her others.

Her own voice is jarring, because she can't possibly sound like _that_.

"…Ok, so today _Hiccup_ and I will be going through a simple, delicious recipe for bouillabaisse—"

"Fish stew," he cuts her off with a cautious whisper, shrinking from her glare preemptively. "I'll be your translator today."

"They don't need a translator," she scoffs on screen, and her own face looks unfamiliar. Animated. If she made that face back in New York in her executive chef's jacket, she'd be torn apart, called sensitive and reactive.

Hiccup's lips twitch, a hint of a smile.

"I do. Call me the village idiot."

She glares at the camera and distinctly remembers saying 'cut' but the glare passes seamlessly.

"Anyway. Fish stew, bouillabaisse, whatever you want to call it. It's a really great recipe and it's really great to make at home because it's going to be delicious no matter what. Any fresh fish you have will add to it, just be careful with your cooking times," her smile regresses to something wooden and she finds herself wishing for some action. The introduction portions of these things are stupid anyway, it'd be better to have scrolling instructions, something to follow.

It's like people will judge this recipe based on what she says about it, rather than its actual quality.

"Should I start chopping this garlic?" Hiccup asks her, interrupts her really and her face shifts again. Vulnerable as she turns towards him and loses her words for a moment.

Another scene they redid later. Why the hell is this version in the final cut?

"How many pieces?" He starts fiddling with the head of garlic, little snips of peel flying all over the cutting board.

"Cloves," she corrects him and snatches the head away, ripping off four or five and setting them in the middle of the cutting board. "The pieces are called cloves."

"Stickler," he shakes his head at her, his cheeks flushing slightly as he picks up the knife like she taught him. "Ok, ok, bear with me." He looks up towards the camera, and she guesses that his wide green eyes have never been guarded the way that she can see straight into him, all those boyish freckles in stark relief on a jaw that's harder than she gave him credit for. "She _just_ taught me how to do this."

"I'll let you narrate your garlic chopping while I rinse these clams," her tone is completely different, and it piques her interest. The casual shrug of normally stiff shoulders as she turns to face the sink.

"And you have to rinse clams so that you don't end up with sand in the stew." He smiles and so carefully chops the ends off of the cloves, sweeping them inelegantly off of the board. "My mom was a horse trainer, not a chef. And my dad's a fisherman, so lots of seafood in the house. My kingdom for the occasional steak," he sighs, dramatic, before his face softens again, too focused on a clove of garlic as he peels it. Quick fingered despite his lack of practice. "She always said that eating sand builds character, but I get enough of that falling on the beach."

"Clumsy?" She laughs on screen and it hits her that the camera was supposed to be off when they filmed this. The way she's standing is _wrong_, she's so loose. Comfortable. She's never pushed her sleeves up like that, never puffed her bangs out of her face as she turned to the pot set out on the stove.

This was…this was a practice run. They're just talking, this isn't something meant to be filmed.

She's momentarily furious about her violated privacy, but then he smiles at her.

"Something like that."

She flushes from her roost on the couch, setting a still half-full cereal bowl aside. He's not…he's not bad looking when he smiles like that, when no one is forcing him. Her stomach churns and she hugs the couch blanket further to her chest, setting down the remote.

"So. Earlier I said something about cooking times," she shrugs on screen, leaning on her hand closer to the chopping board, _gravitating_ towards him. "The clams are going to take the longest, they have to simmer open to ensure that they're done and—"

"And if you simmer fish that long," he smiles at her again, benevolent in his interruption. Dragging her back on track. "It tastes like my dad's boots."

He doesn't…he doesn't quite deserve that glare does he?

"Well seasoned boots, but yes. Boots." She rolls her eyes at him and walks to the neatly organized fridge, pulling out clear container of fish stock and setting it on the counter. "So, we're really going to enforce the flavor of this soup with a good fish stock. You can make your own out of fish bones and skin and that recipe is online with this one, but you can also buy it at most specialty stores."

"What would happen if someone didn't have fish stock?" He picks up the container and frowns at it, big freckled hand flexing on the lid in a way that draws her eye more than it should. Her incarnation on the TV is oblivious, frowning at his question before shrinking slightly, leaning in like she's telling him a secret.

It should have been a secret. This was never supposed to air.

"I've made this with chicken stock before and it was fine. Different, but no one noticed." She shrugs, ignoring the camera completely and looking at him. "Honestly, so much seafood and seasoning goes into this, you could probably use water. It's just more foolproof with fish stock."

"So America, either do a really good job grocery shopping or a really good job cooking, only one is necessary."

Her hand connects with his shoulder, a nearly affectionate backhand and she fumbles for her remote, changing the channel back to the news. She can't believe people watch that. It was…unprofessional. Absolutely unprofessional.

It was like they were _chatting_. Just friendly chatting in the kitchen. And all those comments about his dad's boots? Ridiculous.

He's sort of ridiculous.

She guesses he's entertaining though, in a base sort of way. He's funny. He chops more slowly than she does—far more slowly—so maybe a real novice could learn from that. He's accessible, definitely, relatable in a way that she isn't. And there's something appealing about that jaw, that crooked little smile.

His eyes look photoshopped and she struggles to imagine the real thing, wondering if she somehow missed them being so blindingly bright.

Maybe…maybe Finn really is onto something. Maybe she does need the character, maybe it makes sense. It'd be better if she knew what takes they were going to use, but maybe there's nothing wrong with his involvement. Maybe she could stand it, it's not like she's doing this for the spotlight, she'd rather cook while he talked anyway. It's not like they're changing her paycheck, it's not like they're making her veer off in some strange direction.

She looks at the time, wondering if he's at the store at this time on a Saturday. It's worth risking it, worst case scenario she can get some groceries without him mocking her jug of organic milk when they don't sell anything else. _No hormones, good for you. Cows are growing up too fast these days._

She stands and straightens the blanket on the couch, adjusting her sweatpants for a moment before deciding not to change. It's a precedent she doesn't want to set somehow, she doesn't want to get dressed up to go to the grocery store like she _cares_ what he thinks. It hits her that she's almost starting to like the small town when it only takes her five minutes to cross town and park, that she doesn't worry about locking her car. The parking lot is empty, like always, and she checks her purse for her wallet before getting out and walking inside.

Hiccup is sitting behind his cheese counter, reading popular mechanics and kicking his feet up on a spare office chair.

"Hey _Charlie._"

He fumbles the magazine when he sees her, dropping his feet to the floor like she's going to yell at him about his posture.

"You just stocked up on organic milk yesterday, chef, what brings you back so soon?" He stands, regaining some of that odd, lanky confidence and gesturing to his refrigeration case of cheese. "Have I finally talked you into that Maine cheddar?"

"I saw the show," she shrugs, feet oddly tacked to the welcome mat. "The bouillabaisse show, I hadn't watched it until now."

"And you're here to beat me up?" He laughs, that crimson blush blooming on his cheeks and bringing out eyes that are impossibly brighter in person than on camera. She's not sure how she missed them. "I don't know why they took the practice run footage, I figured you'd catch it but—"

"They didn't ask me," she scowls at her feet, this time keenly aware of the vulnerability in her expression. "I guess I'm more accessible when I'm fumbling."

"There wasn't that much fumbling."

"There…there are still some things I want to work on before we film next week. Maybe you could come over, we could watch a few tapes, practice those garlic chopping skills a bit."

He's silent. Silent and red like he belongs on the shelf with the overpriced heirloom tomatoes.

"I'll cook some steaks, if that convinces you."

"And here I thought you only did fish." His stunned expression slips into a smile that's not quite comfortable. Awkward.

But not the familiar awkward of being bested, not the awkward of someone intimidated. It's sort of _sweet_, sort of cute. She doesn't mind it as much as she should.

"We have a lot to learn about each other if we're going to do this."

"Do what?" He laughs, shoulders shrugging in a strange jittery way. Still cute.

"I think this show could be good." It's the first time she says it with any sort of faith.


	6. Chapter 6

**To the guest who keeps asking why Hiccup is only attractive to 30-60 year old women, it's a joke. That's the age group that watches food network, other women aren't sitting around in the middle of the day and watching cooking shows in any large number. **

00000

Astrid's house isn't at all what Hiccup expected, robin's egg blue and cosier than should fit with all those _rules_, but it makes an odd sort of sense. She's at home in the small, clean kitchen, chopping with that same set of knives she had when filming, and he watches a second too long through the front door's window.

The delicious smell hits him with a lull in the breeze and he knocks, knuckles freezing against the door when she looks at him and grins. Too pretty. She really is pretty. She glances at a pan before walking over and unlocking the door.

"Hey," she greets brusquely, shutting and locking the door behind him before walking back to the kitchen and wiping something off of her cutting board and into a pan with a sizzle.

"That smells amazing." His mouth waters as he toes off his boots by the door.

"You don't have to take those off, the floor is freezing in here."

He looks down at her feet, biting back a laugh at blue faux-fur slippers, puffy and ridiculous at the end of her legs. Then he's flushing and looking at her legs, noticing how tight her jeans are and stumbling over nothing. He catches himself on the doorframe and forces a smile when she looks over her shoulder at him, concerned.

"Nah—no. It's—" he clears his throat and exhales, looking at the ceiling. "They're filthy, I came straight from the barn."

"Barn?" She frowns, picking up a pan and flipping its contents with an artful flick of her wrist.

"Come on." He grins and walks over to her counter, "you know I have a horse. That's where your death wish for me started."

She pauses and looks at him, eyebrows knit together as she absently adjusts the heat of the stove, "you were the jackass riding across the road."

"You were the jackass that didn't know what a stop sign meant." He corrects her and she shakes her head.

"I'm about to put the steaks on, can you go get the DVD playing? It's on the coffee table," she shrugs towards the TV, "I was thinking we could get a leg up on the competition."

"By watching…Smoke and Sizzle?" He picks up the DVD, title scrawled on the dull side in sharpie, and slides it into the deck. There's something distinctly rented about this house, a mismatch between a well-loved blanket and the cushions of the couch.

"Eret's show. It's Finn's big hit I was telling you about." She speaks up over a screaming sizzle as she sets two thick steaks on a large flat pan. His mouth waters instinctually and he glances her way, "I hope you don't mind. It's not really steak for me without potatoes." Another stir of the pan on the stove and he shakes his head.

"No, I don't mind at all. Why would I mind?" He laughs and stands, fiddling with her remote and clicking on the TV. "World Famous Chef Astrid Hofferson is making me a steak. Wouldn't this cost me like, seventy five forty nine in New York?"

"You googled me," she shakes her head, checking something in the oven.

"Do I have to tip?"

"You didn't google very well," she snips at him, the temperature of the room dipping a few degrees.

"It was a joke."

"Save it for the camera," she flips the steaks with a shiny pair of tongs. "Medium-rare alright?"

"I assume you'd cut my head off if I said well-done." He stares at the paused first frame of the DVD. Smoke in a red font some middle aged woman probably thought was _saucy_ and Sizzle in bold black letters like a Midwestern truck ad. "Medium-rare is fine. Great. It's great."

"Alright." A clink of plates. The scrape of a spatula. "Do you mind if we eat while we do this? I'm hoping to get to bed early tonight—" the unfortunate thought of her in bed flashes across his mind again, made worse by the fact her bed is so close. "—looked exhausted on camera last time."

"Oh. Was that the croquet monsieur episode?" He stands to get food and she's closer than he anticipated, shoving a heaping plate into his hands. "You didn't have to—"

"You've been watching my show?" She sits down on the opposite end of the couch and snatches the remote from behind him, pressing play and popping a potato into her mouth with a small contented sound that makes his stomach clench. "For one. He's got a better title than me," she gestures at the screen with a casual wave of her arm. "Hofferson House is…eh. It's not bad, There's Heather McCaffrey with Vegan and Delicious, and that's vomitous but…Smoke and Sizzle is better."

"Of course I watch your show." He tries to get his bearings with what's happening on the TV. Random frames of sausages and brisket and smoke, the kind of food that they don't really have around here. It looks good and makes the steak in front of him smell even better.

He cuts into the meat with a deadly sharp steak knife and takes a bite, groaning in spite of himself. "Oh my god, what did you do this steak?"

"What?" She glances at him. "I didn't do anything to it," she takes a bite off of her own plate, "it's perfect."

"It's…Steak doesn't taste like this. This isn't steak," he laughs and tries one of the potatoes, ignoring when she pauses the DVD for his little fit. "Those aren't potatoes. They're…otherworldly. Did you cook on dragon flame or something equally bizarre and impossible?"

She tries to suppress a smile, prettier in the TV glow. Smug. "You should say stuff like that on camera."

"If it's this delicious, I won't be able to stop it." He eats faster, "maybe I wouldn't be so skinny if you'd been around my whole life."

"Do you need some time alone with your steak? Or can we go over this?"

"Go ahead," he nods, swallowing too quickly but ignoring the pain for another bite. "You talk, I'll listen."

"Alright," she clicks play again and looks back at the screen, narrowing her eyes slightly. "The intro—well, all intros are stupid. I don't really see what's so hard rock about this." She pauses to chew, and he's keenly aware of her adjusting on the couch, stance pensive. "He's got a…ok, the smoker is a good touch."

Hiccup looks away from her, back at the screen, at a tremendously built man in a tight shirt hefting an armful of logs up to his shoulder. His free swinging arm is decorated with a sleeve of colorful tattoos and he's strutting towards the camera.

"Today I'm going to be making my sweet and spicy glazed, Applewood smoked brisket." The man's look at the camera as he sets down the logs rivals the smoke already pouring from the smoker and he grins, "Brisket is a lovely cut from the lower chest of the cow," he grips his own broad chest demonstratively, smiling again. "And when you smoke it at a low, comfortable temperature for a long time, it just _melts_."

"Is the British accent really necessary?"

"Hmm?"

Hiccup looks over at Astrid and she's leaning forward, tip of her fork idly in between her lips. "Oh. Accent. He's just British."

"How do you know that's not a trick?" Hiccup can't help but puff up a bit, setting his shoulders back and taking another bite of steak like it'll instantly stick and inflate him. "I can be Scottish—"

"No, he's from England." She pauses and rewinds and Hiccup has to wonder if she stops it where she does on purpose, the man halfway bent forward to load the smoker with wood, dragon on his bicep flexed and _rippling_.

"Did they not have a shirt in his size?" Hiccup scoffs, "how do you know she's actually from England? It's all sort of excessive."

"No, he's from London. I think. Somewhere around London, we went to cooking school together." She picks the remote up again, taking another slow bite and pressing play.

"So. Once I get this fire started," the man on screen grins again, hopelessly amicable. "But bear with me, I was just chopping it out back. It's still a bit damp—"

"Really?" Hiccup laughs.

"No…No, I get it." Astrid nods, eyes locked to the television. "He's setting up room for failure, I'd kick him out of my kitchen, but—but I can _see_ how this works."

"I'm sure you can," Hiccup mutters under his breath, trying to refocus on the show. The man is behind a counter now. An outside counter all red brick and wood, patting a huge slab of meat.

"Now, we have to give this lovely brisket some attention." He starts pouring spices from small, pre-measured bowls into a larger mixing bowl, stirring it with one big hand. "This is just a really simple dry rub, salt and black pepper, oregano, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder. A pinch of cayenne for some _heat_." He acts like he's forgotten something, "and don't forget, a smidge of brown sugar to get a lovely caramelized exterior over the twelve sweet hours we'll pamper this baby."

"He is good," Astrid laughs from the other end of the couch, setting her plate aside and leaning her elbows on her knees. There's a shift in her voice, a kind of gentle throatiness he hasn't heard before and he sets his empty plate on the coffee table, looking back at the TV.

Eret is rubbing the brisket with a concentrated look on his brutishly handsome face, biting his lower lip when he flips it and starts massaging the spices into the other side.

"Well. I think I understand what he's selling."

Astrid responds with a noncommittal hum, and Hiccup curls his lip. If he were any less stubborn, he'd leave her alone with the TV.

00000

**I'm still laughing over the sexy meat massage. It will always be the greatest thing ever. **


	7. Chapter 7

00000

"Can I keep these?" Hiccup picks up the butts of the carrots, a hopeful and completely unrehearsed smile on his face.

"You want the carrot scraps?" Astrid glances towards the camera, hoping she looks more confused than irritated. They practiced this. They practiced it twice and he never asked for carrot scraps.

"My horse does," he laughs, and not for the first time she envies how comfortable he is with the camera. Looking at him, she'd never guess that he'd have a talent for being the center of attention, but he thrives with it, attempting to juggle three roughly peeled carrot chunks and dropping one on the counter. "No, in case you were wondering, I did not graduate clown school."

"Keep them," she laughs, stirring the soup and checking one last time on the mussels simmering away with white wine. Apparently the demystification of mussels is number two on Finn's to-do list, right behind her making nice with the flippant cheese guy.

She sneaks a look at him out of the corner of her eye. He's pretending to hide from her, telling some quiet story about his horse and carrots to the camera. She nudges him with her elbow and he feigns getting caught, blinking at her with wide eyes.

She opens her mouth soundlessly and clears her throat, suddenly too warm.

"Can I get back to cooking now?" Astrid tries to sound patient but fails, shrugging stiff shoulders, hyperaware of how obvious her stupid blush must be on camera.

"Can I ask you something?"

Again. Unrehearsed.

"Sure," she fusses with pots, turning off the cooked mussels and plugging and unplugging her hand blender again.

"This soup is butter, which I get, onions, carrots, curry powder, of all things, and broth. At what point does it become something cohesive and magical? Because that sounds sort of disjointed." He narrows his eyes, testing her. It's a challenge.

She grins, "why don't I just make you a plate? Then you can tell me how cohesive it is?"

"You don't have to make it sound so threatening, sheesh," he shakes his head, picking up the knife wrong again, grip white knuckle tight around the handle.

She pauses to correct him, her fingers sliding along his until he holds it correctly. He seems to forget how to hold a knife at completely random times. Normally when they're filming, and always when she should be doing something else.

"Can you finish chopping that garnish for me?" She points at the basil leaves on the cutting board and he nods, charmingly serious as he tries to line them up in a perfect stack. "Ok, that's too hard to watch, let me show you."

"I can chop up leaves."

"Yeah, I need them this century." She pushes him out of the way with her hip and takes the knife from him. "So you have them stacked, that's good, you take the leaves and roll them from stem to tip."

"Like this?" He does the same thing with another, rougher stack, and she's strangely ok with this improvisation and his willingness to learn.

"Not quite so rough, be gentle with the leaves," she remembers to look at the camera, "bruising them bruises the flavor too." A little adjustment and she rocks her knife through the roll, "and this is technically called a chiffonade—"

"But I'm still stuck on _chopping_ half the time."

"Anyway, while he figures that out," Astrid walks across the kitchen and ladles some soup into a bowl. "I like to drop a few mussles right in the middle, then you can serve the rest family style in the middle of the table."

"That's what I love about this," Hiccup sighs wistfully, eyebrows knitted in careful concentration as he finishes chopping way more basil than she'll need. She doesn't have the heart to tease him about it, somehow.

"What do you love about this?"

"Family style is a concept that doesn't make my knees tremble." He laughs, "why do you think I'm so skinny? Family style was practically a martial art in my family."

"You aren't making me excited to meet your parents, you know." She sets the bowl in front of him and garnishes with a few shreds of basil, setting a spoon down next to it.

"And why would you be meeting my parents?" He says it with an almost smug little smile, his eyes fragile. He's asking her if this is ok, if this obvious innuendo is ruining everything.

"They…" she leans back on her heels, trying to make the most of the six inches between them, "they probably need a good meal after your cooking."

"Oh, just because I don't put curry powder with carrots, my family is starving? I see how it is," he rolls his eyes at her and picks up the bowl of soup, taking a bite. "Oh."

"Oh what?"

"Just…ooh," he eats one of the mussels, his eyes rolling exaggeratedly back in his head as he starts shoveling the soup into his mouth. "I thought…I thought it would be weird, but it's got this…mmm, that's good. It's got this sort of sweet and spicy thing going on, and you can taste the wine from the mussels." His spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl like he can't get it fast enough, and it's a repeat of the steak incident where he acted like she'd invented searing.

"So any snarky remarks?" She asks him with a laugh and he sets the half empty bowl aside, turning to her semi-seriously before surprising her with arms flung around her waist as he lifts her into the air. She squeals, a sound she's definitely never made before and shoves at his shoulders with the flat of her palms, squirming until he tightens his grip and pins her against him.

"Sorry," he's too warm, too present, a wiry strength she hadn't really considered painfully obvious in the arms around her. He lets her to the floor slowly, her entire chest sliding along his and her feet bobble slightly when they touch the floor, not quite ready to support her weight. "It's really good."

She's still too close, she can see the slightly chapped texture of his lips, the striations on light pink, oddly perfect with the smattering of fading freckles on his chin. She leans back onto her tiptoes and kisses him, freezing immediately.

What is she doing? This is ridiculous. There's a camera ten feet away—

He responds, his arms softening around her waist, head tilting against hers. She sighs and leans into it. The camera clicks.

"Cut!" She shoves him off of her, glaring at the camera-man who moved so much closer when she wasn't looking. "Cut. We can—let's just do the whole reaction part again."

00000

Of course they film it again, but Astrid leaves with the sinking dread that comes from knowing exactly what clip they're going to choose. The one with that _kiss_. That kiss that shouldn't have happened, that kiss that she definitely doesn't want her parents and the rest of the 35-60 female demographic to see.

That surprisingly good kiss.

She shivers at the memory, tugging her coat tighter around her waist and walking a little faster to her car. She and Hiccup didn't mention it afterwards and she thought ignoring it would fix it, they can just brush it all under the carpet until the instant he tries to pick her up again.

She's not entirely surprised with a too familiar hand lands on her shoulder.

"What?"

"Oh, Hi Astrid, I just—"

"You just saw me, you don't need to say 'hi'," she turns to face him, forcing her face apathetic. "What's going on?"

"I was wondering if you had any plans for Thanksgiving."

It's not what she expects. Hiccup never does what she expects.

He introduced himself as _Hiccup_ for crying out loud, the guy is a definitional wildcard.

She licks her lips unthinking and shrugs against his hand, "I was thinking Turkey sandwich."

"So you don't have any plans." He smiles, "I was wondering if you'd want to come over—"

"I'm not going to cook your family dinner, Hiccup," she swipes his hand off of her shoulder. "Just because I'm a chef doesn't mean that my only hobby is cooking, you know—"

"No, I didn't mean that at all." He follows her as she stalks off towards her car, leaning on the rear view mirror and struggling to hold the door shut. "I just meant…my dad is curious about what I've been up to, and he and Gobber always cook up this massive spread and there's always leftovers, and everyone is curious about you and—"

"Are you asking me out?"

Because only Hiccup would find a family dinner an appropriate first date.

Not that she'd go on a first date with him anyway, of course. Not that her lips are still tingling. Not that her whole chest is too tight and too warm, despite the frigid sea breeze.

"I'm asking you to explain to my father that being on a cooking show isn't turning me soft."

"Isn't it a little late to worry about that?" She softens, leaning on the car and sighing, "What time should I be there?"

00000


	8. Chapter 8

00000

"So, what does Astrid Hofferson like?" Snotlout leans on the kitchen counter watching Hiccup peel potatoes.

"From what I can tell, heavy bottomed aluminum pots and her knife block," Hiccup smiles in spite of himself. "Basically kitchen utensils that double as weapons."

He thinks back to rehearsing in her tiny rental kitchen and joking about the fact that she's the only person on Berk who bothers to lock her door. About her ensuing demonstration of that cast iron pan as a home defense weapon. She almost took his head off.

And like always, thinking about Astrid leads to thinking about that kiss no one will talk about and the way she felt in his arms. He sighs.

The potato peeler catches his thumb, drawing blood, and he swears, popping the digit into his mouth and rolling his eyes at Snotlout's laugh.

"I mean, where would she like to go with me on our first date tomorrow night?"

"Ask her yourself," Hiccup rummages through the silverware drawer for a band-aid.

"You think she'd say yes?" A flash of vulnerability in Snot's eyes makes Hiccup smile, wrapping his thumb in the bandage.

"Not a chance."

Not that he has a chance either, not really. Some flirtatious dialogue and a serendipitous kiss do not a relationship make.

Hiccup shakes his head, trying to forget the word _relationship_, the entire concept. It's ridiculous. He's…he's a small batch cheese maker and she's Astrid Hofferson. At first he didn't get it, she was just some prissy, big city chef making Berk into a gimmick to make a buck, the more he _eats_…it's like she puts something of herself into her food. Something warm and mysterious and unique that he identifies a little more with every bite.

And he keeps googling her. He keeps finding rave reviews about flavors and dishes he can't even start to understand. He used to think that he was perceptive, that his cheeses were 'nuanced' as critics like to say.

Now he just feels like some small town hack whose vocabulary ends at salty, creamy and _nutty_.

A knock on the door electrifies him and he abandons potatoes and Snotlout entirely, ignoring the way his cousin sets himself up in his coolest pose and walking into the living room. His dad beats him to the door and Hiccup relishes in Astrid's moment of open-faced confusion, likely at his dad's size.

She sees him under his dad's arm and smiles, juggling a pie dish to hold out her hand and introduce herself.

"You can call me Stoick," his dad accepts the pie, "and you didn't have to bring anything, you're a guest."

"It's no problem," Astrid waves him off and Hiccup believes her.

The thing about Astrid is that she's vaguely magical, if you leave her with idle hands around ingredients for too long, something amazing happens. She was probably just _thinking_ about Thanksgiving and a perfect pie just materialized in her oven.

"Actually, dad, Spitelout forgot to bring dessert. Again." Hiccup takes her coat and hangs it by the door, resisting the suddenly overwhelming urge to wrap his arm around her shoulders. "Hey," he greets under his breath and she nods at him, smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Her lips.

God, he kissed those lips. His mind wanders before he can stop it, wondering what would have happened if the camera hadn't been there, if they'd kissed while rehearsing in her kitchen.

She probably would have had better aim with her cast iron pan.

"Thank you, Astrid." His dad gestures towards the couch where Spitelout remains fixated on the game, nursing his fourth beer of the day. "Go ahead, have a seat. Charles has it covered in the kitchen."

"Well, I think I'd like to see that, _Charles_." Astrid smiles at him and he wishes everyone knew about the kiss. The episode is premiering this Saturday, of course, two days after he needs to shut Snotlout up.

"You don't have to cook, you're a guest."

"An' yer turnin' down some professional help, Stoick." Gobber wanders into the room and shakes Astrid's hand, reigniting Hiccup's strange urge to claim her, to pull her into his side and hold her there. "Charlie has tol' me so much about you."

"Oh?" Astrid looks up at Hiccup, on eyebrow raised.

"You make me be at your trailer at seven in the morning, of course I complained about you."

"Ah. Of course." If he were insane, he'd say she looks almost hurt, her smile tight on her cheeks like the camera is rolling. "And I really don't mind helping. It looks like _Charlie_ needs it," she casually brushes her hand against the bandage around his thumb.

"I thought you weren't going to cook my family dinner?" He crosses his arm, sheepish and hiding the wound, remembering a million lectures on filet knife safety.

"I said I'd _help_," she rolls her eyes at him and the other men in the room laugh with the exception of Spitelout, who turns up the volume.

"Well," he waits for a moment to be ruined, for her to take back her offer. She looks at him expectantly. "Kitchen is this way…"

She walks ahead of him, making it so easy and so _wrong_ to ignore his father and Gobber's indistinguishably whispered gossip in favor of better views. Snotlout is still leaning on the far counter, sipping a beer and perusing Astrid like she's on the menu. Astrid ignores him entirely, rubbing her hands together and looking to Hiccup.

"What can I help with?"

"Finding my heart," Snotlout speaks up in a posed monotone and Hiccup rolls his eyes. "I think you stole it, sweet thang."

"My cousin with the bad lines is Snotlout, don't ask. If you wouldn't mind peeling the rest of the potatoes, it'd be great. The peeler bit me," he holds his thumb towards her and she shakes her head almost _fondly_, elbowing Snotlout wordlessly out of the way and peeling faster than he could ever dream of.

"Damn girl, that's appealing." Snotlout leans against the counter next to her and Astrid glances at Hiccup, warning him of her retort.

"Don't talk to me."

"I'd listen to her, Snot." Hiccup shakes his head and opens the oven door to rotate the two casserole dishes inside, baking below the sixteen pound bird that should be too big for six people but probably isn't.

"Is that green bean casserole?" She peers over his shoulder and he nearly drops a dish, glaring at her. "The turkey skin is nice and crispy too, did you brine?"

"Can you backseat cook further from the wide open oven, please?" He'd like to move the other dish without dropping anything on himself. "And yes, it's classic Campbells. And the sweet potatoes have mini-marshmallows on top because," he closes the oven door and thumps his chest with a fist, mimicking his father. "it's tradition."

"Wait a second. Are you _flirting_ with her, cuz?" Snotlout asks, finally dropping the cool position and laughing.

"Well, he sure isn't flirting with you," Astrid holds a potato and peeler in Snot's direction. "Either make yourself useful or get out of the way."

"I don't _do_ that." Snotlout looks at the vegetable like it's alien.

"Go watch the game, Snotlout. Do the _manly_ thing," she shakes her head at him and pulls a knife from the block on the counter like she's been cooking here for decades, neatly quartering potatoes.

Snotlout huffs uselessly for a moment before walking nearly unnoticed from the kitchen.

"I could use a new Snot-manager," he fills a pot with cold water and sets it on the counter next to her. "Are you interested in the position? You're great with idiots."

"No thanks," she drops the chunks of potatoes into the pot and reaches around him for the salt, arm momentarily tight and warm across his stomach.

"I'll have you know that he thinks you'd be at the top of Maxim's list of chefs to nail."

He freezes as soon as it's out, so far filthier than their usual rapport. She stares at him for a moment before snorting and it's the least ladylike and most endearing laugh he's ever heard.

"Is that actually a thing?"

"I think you'd know. They would have called you."

There it is. Proof that it's absolutely possible to trip over words while standing absolutely still.

"According to Snotlout?" She smirks at him, hands on her hips.

The oven timer blares and Hiccup lurches back to life, "Turkey! That must be the turkey, it's—let me find my thermometer, I left it around here somewhere…"

00000


	9. Chapter 9

00000

"And oh my god, the third one?" Astrid sorts through the paper plate of precious cheese scraps for the right chunk of dairy gold. "Here," she sets it in the other woman's hand, taking a sip of wine. "It's—I can't even describe it. It's amazing."

"I've never seen anybody this excited about cheese," Ruffnut smiles, "are you sure you're not just excited about cheese guy?"

"Taste it."

"Fine," she nibbles on the chunk suspiciously before popping it into her mouth. "Ok, that's pretty great. But I still think you're into the man."

"Because I kissed him?" Astrid laughs, emboldened by wine and ignoring the flush in her chest at the memory.

It's been too long since someone touched her like that.

Men who allow themselves to be called Hiccup should not be such good kissers. Or so charming. Or smart. Or able to make cheese she can't put into worlds.

"Because of _how_ you kissed him."

"Like he was trying to get away?" Astrid sighs before she can stop herself, blushing and pushing the mostly empty wine bottle away from herself.

"I was going to say 'on camera,' but yours is better." The other woman shakes her head and fiddles with the edge of the plate. "Why don't you slice yourself off a hunk of that gruyere? Before you go. You're going to be gone for a week, a looooong week without that ass in your life."

"Do you even know what gruyere is?"

"I do work for the food network. Gruyere is sweet but slightly salty and aged in a humid environment. And no one really knows how to pronounce it, so it's a damn good metaphor for Charlie or Hiccup or whatever cheese man's real name is."

"His dad calls him Charles."

"That's fucking adorable." Ruffnut tops off her glass with the rest of the wine, "Oh hey, speak of the devil." She waves and Astrid looks over her shoulder through the front window at Hiccup on a small, black horse.

Astrid raises her hand in a lazy wave and Ruffnut kicks her under the table.

"Ouch, what?"

"Go talk to him."

"He's busy. We're busy—what are you doing?"

Ruffnut chugs her glass of wine and stands, pulling her jacket on and sliding into her boots.

"I'm leaving so you're not busy anymore," she grins, "we'll all be happier with chef Astrid au gratin."

"I don't have to go out there," Astrid crosses her arms, smugly stationary with her plate of cheese.

Maybe she's getting a little too attached to this cheese.

"She'll be right out cheese boy," Ruffnut trots down the stairs too easily for how much wine she had and even from a distance Astrid sees Hiccup's smile widen, his horse shifting under him.

It wouldn't hurt to talk to the guy, even if she's not making a gratin any time soon. She looks at the horse and grabs an apple off of her counter and her winter jacket before walking out into the cold. She leaves the door unlocked because Hiccup is right and there aren't any thieves in Berk, anyway.

"Hey!" He calls out, stroking his horse's neck and muttering something calming in a low, even voice. "I take it you didn't watch the episode this morning if you're still talking to me."

"We kissed on national television, didn't we?"

"International." He shrugs, shifting his seat. The horse adjusts as well, snorting quietly. "Food network has programming in over 150 countries."

"You've been researching again," she pauses ten feet away and the horse looks a lot bigger than she'd given him credit for.

"Just came from talking to Finn," a shy, crooked smile. "Apparently people _ship_ us."

"What the hell does that mean?" She tosses the apple into the air and catches it, and the hose snorts, nodding his head.

"He can hear that apple, you know. Stop teasing him."

"He can _hear_ the apple?" Astrid holds it out and steps forward so that it's underneath the horse's nose. "Can he?"

"Oh yeah, of course."

Astrid holds absolutely still as the horse plucks it gently from her palm, crunching and dropping a slobbery quarter onto her foot. "Sorry about Mr. Messy Eater here."

"What did you mean by _hear_ the apple?" She lays a flat hand on the horse's neck, his milky green eye catching her attention.

"He's got a little case of the blind, don't you Toothless?" Hiccup scratches under the front of the saddle, shifting his seat again.

"And he's toothless too?"

"No, that's just…that's just his name." He smiles at her, his hands fiddling with long leather leads. "Do you want a ride?"

"What?"

"There's a really cool path down to the beach from here, we ride it all the time, do you want to come?" His hands twitch, his smile falters, "I mean, you don't have to—"

"I don't want to make your blind horse carry that much extra weight, it feels like dirty pool."

Toothless stomps and tosses his head.

"Don't insult him," but Hiccup doesn't actually sound offended, his smile widening again. "I was planning to walk, I normally lead him down the path anyway, it's easier to help him with obstacles and…this is a stupid idea. Sorry—"

"No, it sounds—yeah, let's go." She frowns at how easily he swings down, as graceful as she's ever seen him, landing lightly on the ground. She steps up to the saddle and tries to mimic him in reverse, her foot missing its hold entirely and stomping back onto the ground. Toothless snorts.

"Have you ever done this before?" He pulls the straps down from around the Toothless's neck and holds them loosely in one hand. The horse shifts and Hiccup gives him a stern 'whoa' in a low voice that draws all of Astrid's attention.

"Yes."

"State fair pony ride?" He asks with a smile, his hand landing on her shoulder and stopping her from trying again. "Let me give you a leg up."

"This is a dumb idea."

"Bend your leg," he taps the outside of her thigh and she scowls at him.

"I can do it, just…just give me a minute." She anchors her hands at either end of the saddle and carefully lifts her leg, sliding her toes into the foothold. Exhaling and jumping, she swings her leg over the horse and settles into the seat.

"The stirrups don't really work," he laughs, poking the side of her foot. "But it's fine, we're walking. Comfortable?"

"Sure."

"Let's go, bud." Hiccup clicks and starts walking forward at an even pace. Astrid grabs the handle on the front of the saddle with both hands and Hiccup laughs back at her. "Relax, he's not going anywhere—tree root," he smiles when the horse takes a mostly graceful step over the obstacle.

"He's pretty nimble." She shifts carefully, resting her palm flat against the big warm shoulder, scratching dense winter fur with short fingernails. "How long have you had him."

"Since I was fourteen," he glances back at her alerting Toothless casually to another root. "His condition was progressive, the vet said he was suffering but…but that was a load of bullshit, frankly. He was a happy colt, he just needed reminders to pick up his feet."

"You raised him."

"We grew up together." Hiccup corrects her, long fingered hand lingering fondly against Toothless's neck for a moment.

"I meant to tell you, I'm going out of town next week." She wipes one inexplicably sweaty hand on her thigh before tucking it deep into her jacket pocket, shrugging her hood up around cold ears.

"Well, my contract is expired anyway." He turns back to smile at her, "unless this is you saying you want me to stick around."

"Finn already said that, didn't he?"

"I wanted to hear it from you," he shrugs and clicks to Toothless, some strange signal Astrid doesn't recognize.

"You're good for my ratings."

"So, you're going out of town next week?" His voice is falsely bright and her knees twitch against Toothless's warm flanks.

"Actually, this one is exciting. They had a last minute dropout on celebrity chopped and…and my name came up."

He stops completely and turns around, mindlessly stroking Toothless's chest and smiling at her, obviously impressed.

"You have to let me help you practice. This is—I've always wanted to be the person who picks out the baskets on chopped. That's the best job in the world."

"How much food network do you watch?" She laughs, trying to be ok with the penetrating way he's looking at her. Like he could see right through her jacket if he wanted, but instead he's focusing on her face.

"Since you got here?" He looks at his feet, "constant background noise."

00000


	10. Chapter 10

00000

"What are you going to do if they give you rattlesnake? Pigs' feet? A whole chicken in a can?" Hiccup quizzes Astrid, the impossibly pleasant taste of her beer, cocoa powder, yogurt and rice noodle dessert lingering on the back of his tongue. He thought that would get her, he dug deep into the pit of his pantry for that nonsense and she handled it fine. Great. Wonderfully.

"I'll handle it."

"You don't need to practice anymore?" He looks at the clock on his oven, nine o'clock at night and she's so impossibly present at his tiny kitchen table, drumming her fingers on the wood and sipping on a glass of water, no ice.

"Are you still hungry?" She laughs, "where do you put it all? Really?"

"I'm making up for twenty four years of culinary apathy," he smiles, gauging the situation for a moment. She's still looking at him, wide eyed and concentrating. Nervous but attentive. She's really going to listen, isn't she? "Everyone in my family is a fisherman and my mom wasn't much of a cook. Everything on the dinner table constantly tasted like my dad's boots. I swear I didn't eat anything but grilled cheese for three years."

"And that's where the interest in cheese came from," she fills it in, fingers white knuckled around the glass.

She's so much more nervous than she's letting on.

"One day I was really, really sick of craft singles and I nabbed some of my mom's sharp cheddar. It changed my life."

She laughs, loosening up, and he wants to keep her laughing.

"Really, that white crackle barrel sharp cheddar, green wrapper? You've got to remember this, because someone has to write my biography."

"Most irritating sous-chef," she demonstrates a banner with her hands and he scoffs.

"You're playing a dangerous game, you know."

"Yeah?" She leans forward, her shirt catching slightly on the edge of his table and sliding down just enough to reveal a pale inch of skin he hasn't seen before.

"Irritating sous-chef? That's my title?" He stands and stalks over to the wine rack hidden where his dishes should go, pulling out the best bottle of red he has on hand. She'll know the difference, it's worth it. "Open this up for me." He sets it down on the table along with the swiss army knife from his pocket.

Two glasses and the cheese tray from the back of the cupboard.

"Oh, so you're drinking too?" She pours the glasses too full, her hands already steadying as she takes a deep sip out of hers.

"Who said you could start yet? I'm trying to impress you. Give me a minute."

"Sixty seconds left on the clock," she teases him with a nasally impression of his own countdown earlier and he glares at her.

"A metaphorical minute. Ok?"

"Fine."

It's hard to work with her watching him. She sneaks another sip of wine when she thinks he's not looking and he lets it calm him too. They're actually having fun, this is fun.

No matter how much he tells himself otherwise, it feels like something is hanging in the balance here, something important depends upon his decision. Obviously, his smoked brie, the best selling soft cheese. The sharpest cheddar he has, that gorgeous five year vintage, the one he put his stock into when he didn't know what the hell he was doing. He dabbles for a minute before walking out to the garage turned cheese cellar and grabbing a hunk of that experimental parmesan type thing. It might be a disaster. In the moment, he wants her opinion.

He sets the tray down on the table in front of her with a sleeve of crackers and dainty knives he'd never own up to possessing and she looks at him appraisingly for a moment.

"You're going to woo me with cheese?"

"I'm not wooing you," he sits down again, next to her this time, and takes a sip of his wine. "Go ahead. Eat. Eat and tell me I'm an irritating sous-chef."

"You know I think your cheese is great."

"You do?" He sits up straight and nudges the tray towards her.

"I didn't tell you that?" She laughs. "It's really…it's something. Ask Ruffnut, I was forcing her to describe it with me this morning."

"That was…my family doesn't really understand past a gouda. That's not even the good stuff."

"There's better stuff?" She drags the cheese closer and spreads a bit of brie on a cracker. She chews it pensively, her eyes closing. "Ok. That's better stuff."

"I told you, I told you I'm not just an annoying sous-chef." He slices the cheddar, placing it on a cracker and holding it out to her. He expects her to take it from him, he never considered she'd lean forward and eat it out of his hand, warm lips glancing across his fingers. "That's…"

She's still leaning towards him, swallowing and taking an almost pensive sip of her wine, "Maine cheddar."

"Yeah. My five year aged Maine cheddar." He reaches for the parmesan with still tingling fingers and she stops him, her hand warm and firm against the crook of his elbow.

"I'll try it later," her hand slides up to his shoulder and she leans in, kissing him and exhaling sharply against his face.

It's more cautious than before, somehow, and it occurs to him that she's probably been dwelling on this, deciding. She's been thinking about kissing him, he's sure of it. And he's not going to let it be a mistake.

He kisses her back, cupping the side of her neck and holding her to him as he deepens the kiss, keenly aware of the privacy, her pulse throbbing against his palm. Her arms wrap around his neck and she pulls herself closer, knees jostling his, her tongue parting his lips and tangling with his. His free hand finds her waist, fingers curling in her shirt.

She pulls away and looks at him with slightly hooded eyes. She doesn't move, arms locked almost painfully tight around his neck.

"Sorry—" He must have read her wrong, he must have seen something that wasn't there.

"Don't apologize," she stands long enough to swing her leg over his lap, straddling him and kissing him again, her hand sliding back to cup his jaw, fingertips dragging almost experimentally through his stubble. He moans and she deepens the kiss, grabbing one of his hands and placing it against her waist, dangerously low.

He grips her hip, and tugs her against him, nipping her lower lip when she grinds against him. There's no hiding the aching hardness in the front of his pants, and she grins against his lips, grinding down again. He bucks up against her, the chair squeaking underneath them as he pulls away and lays open mouthed kisses against her jaw, her neck. Her skin is vaguely spiced, perfumed from standing over a stove, and completely delicious.

Her hands nest in his hair as she yanks him back to kiss her, open mouthed and sloppy, her hips twitching in a slow, determined rhythm against his. She yanks at his shirt, her fingernails dragging up his back, hands sliding around to his chest, resting flat against his frantic heartbeat. His grip starts to wander from her waist, glancing across the top of her ass, tracing the line of her bra underneath her shirt, and she moans into his mouth, scrabbling for her own shirt.

"Wait," he tries to pull away, to put some sort of distance between them. She grinds against him again, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and nibbling.

She guides his hand under her shirt, over the slick cup of her bra. He groans.

"Astrid, wait."

"I don't want to wait." Her hands are on him again, tracing the faint protrusions of his ribs, fingernails digging into his sides.

"I don't either," he can't bring himself to remove his hand from her chest, no matter how much he should. His thumb strokes across her, acutely aware of her hardening nipple straining at the fabric.

Surely she'd be way more comfortable if he helped her out of her bra.

"Then don't," she kisses his temple, his ear, tugging again at his shirt.

"You have an early flight." He's an idiot.

This is very obviously his one shot with Astrid, but something feels _off_. She's frantic and desperate and nervous. He doesn't want to be a stress relief, stress reliefs never turn into more.

"I'm already packed." She bucks against him, thighs squeezing his hips.

"Hey," he finally convinces his hand away from her chest, sliding it regretfully from under her shirt, resting it on her thigh before that becomes too appetizing and he grips her shoulders, holding her away at arms' length. "Hey."

"You don't…you don't want it." She sighs, messing with impossibly tangled hair and scooting back on his thighs, trying to get up. He doesn't allow that either, tightening his grip on her shoulders.

"No." he shakes his head, "no, no, no. That's not it at all. I just…If you only want me because of cheese and wine and stress about Chopped, I don't…that's not _how_ I want it."

Yep. An idiot.

He's turning Astrid down based on circumstance, he's obviously falling off the deep end.

She sighs and leans into his hands, biting her lip and letting it go, "you're right. I'm not packed, I was lying. I have to be at the airport by eight and it's an hour and a half drive," she crumples again under the stress and he hugs her on impulse, like he keeps wanting to, fitting his chin into the crook of her shoulder.

"I'm not kicking you out." He inhales and that comforting herbaceous scent is in her hair too. "Stay, finish your wine. I'll drive you home."

She's rigid for a too long moment before hugging him back, her arms wrapping loosely around his shoulders.

"Thanks, Hiccup."

00000


	11. Chopped Edition

**Bonus: Chopped Edition**

00000

Four of your fan picked Food Network chefs think they have what it takes to be the next Celebrity Chopped champion. Let's see who you voted for:

Heather McCaffrey. Ever since she won Next Food Network Star two seasons ago, Chef Heather has been bringing simple, vegan cooking into homes across America.

"It's just…it's always been my life's mission to show people that you don't have to hurt anyone to make and eat delicious food," she smiles, all pearly white teeth and immaculately messy bangs. "I'm playing for PETA today, they could always use the money."

Greg "Deraged" Dagur. On his show Molecular Gastrique, this adventurous, new age chef brings chemically complicated cooking to you.

"Why grill when you can aerate? This is not my father's kitchen, I took it from him!" Dagur cackles, wiping his hand under his eye, "He gave it to me. Unknowingly. And when I win today, I'll be giving the money to Naked Clowns."

A long pause.

"It's exactly what it sounds like. They donate money to help MS or something. One of those twitchy diseases. But first? The clowns do a naked routine, I love it"

_Eret_. A man who needs no introduction, his show Smoke and Sizzle has been putting up unprecedented numbers for the last year, and he's inspired his own Food Network line of luxury grill utensils.

"Oh I just…I'll let my food speak for itself," Eret smiles. "And after I win, I'll be donating the money to St. Jude's. They do such amazing research and help so many children."

And finally, a last minute write in addition, Astrid Hofferson. You may know her from her James Beard award, or years as executive chef at Hooligan in New York, but you definitely know her from Hofferson House. A clip slides across the screen, a clip that Astrid knows all too well, Hiccup's arms around her waist as she kisses him.

"Really? That's what you're going to show?" Astrid rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, glaring through the camera. "I'm a Cordin Bleu educated chef and you're going to fixate on who I kissed last? Sexist. No one is mentioning that whole Dagur-Kardashian thing."

She pauses and thinks for a second, shrugging, "Hiccup is great for my show but we're just coworkers." She blushes, "just _friends_, alright? And to get back on topic, I'll be donating to the Wild Horse Sanctuary in Southern California. It's…it's an amazing organization doing a lot for mustangs nationwide."

Someone mutters behind the camera and Astrid flushes again, "so what if Hiccup has a horse? It's a legitimate cause."

All four chefs line up behind their stations in the chopped kitchen, getting their bearings. Astrid checks for her knives a third time, irrationally attached after the drama in airport security. The basket takes up the majority of her chopping board and for a scalding second this all feels like a huge mistake.

"Open your baskets, and you have tilapia, smoked gouda, lemonade powder and pickled jalapenos."

Heather stops short, her hands hovering above the package of tilapia in the basket, but Ted Allen continues, "you have twenty minutes for the appetizer round, starting _now_."

Astrid scrambles for her fish, glancing at the clock and trying to put her thoughts together as it ticks down, seconds fading into something smaller in front of her eyes. The gouda and tilapia stare back at her, refusing to get along even though they absolutely have to.

00000

The four chefs line up in front of the judges twenty minutes later, wiping sweaty hands on the sides of their aprons. The judges, Bucket and Mulch from the acclaimed Food Network program Show, an entertainment how to from start to finish, and Silent Sven, our resident master of Scandanavian fusion.

Eret's dish is unveiled first, and he takes a step forward, charming smile settling into place, "today, I have for you a lightly fried fish taco in a fresh masa tortilla with a side of jalapeno queso to pour over the top. The lemonade powder coats limes to be squeezed over the completed taco for a bit of brightness." He glances at Astrid before the judges taste their first bite, something almost fragile in his eyes before he flashes back to confidence.

"The idea to make a taco is extremely creative," Mulch takes a second bite, queso dribbling into his beard. "There is a bit of a contrast with the crispy fish and the heavy queso that I'm not sure I enjoy, but creativity and presentation off the charts. It's just _yummy_."

Eret puffs up as the camera pans to Bucket, "did I already eat the lemonade powder, Mulch? I'm not finding it anywhere on the plate."

"It's coating the lime," Mulch points out, squeezing another splash of citrus onto his plate. "Quite delicious."

"And Silent Sven, what do you think?" Ted points to the third judge who looks up at the camera, raising a sideways thumb before pointing it in the air. "And that's a thumbs up from Sven, let's move along to the next dish.

Dagur's dish is placed in front of the judges and Bucket looks momentarily confused, probing the lofty cloud of burnt orange cream with his fork before following Mulch's lead and taking a bite. "I have for you a lemon crumb breaded tilapia with a jalapeno, garlic powder and a gouda-paprika froth."

"First off, the presentation is lovely," Mulch gestures to the plate and Bucket nods.

"It's like a picture. I'd love to paint your food," Bucket takes a second bite and smiles, a smug, happy little smile that makes Astrid nervous. She learned early on in cooking school that perfection didn't always equate to genuine enjoyment, and a fleeting thought of Hiccup stumbling through the doorway to introduce her food in his charmingly fumbling way makes her heart clench.

He could do this better than she can. He'd have some spiel about gouda and charm Silent Sven out of silence.

Silent Sven gives Dagur a thumbs up, happily eating another forkful of flaky fish with a gusto that radiates perfectly cooked.

And onto Chef Heather.

Astrid is more relieved than she probably should be when the four plates in front of the judges are nearly empty, a dainty looking salad covering half of the pristine porcelain.

"This is an arugula salad with gouda crisps and a jalapeno vinaigrette," Heather introduces, smiling too wide and stepping forward.

Astrid thinks game show host, even though she shouldn't. Or maybe the woman who flips the letters on The Wheel of Fortune, what's her name—

"I'm not finding my fish, Mulch," Bucket whispers, too loud, and Mulch clears his throat, looking back at the camera.

"It looks like your fish didn't make it onto all of the plates."

"Yeah that's…" Heather thinks for a moment, tucking her hair behind her ear and it occurs to Astrid that if the crispy coating on her own plate fell apart at all, she could see herself going home based on Heather's raw charm. "When I opened that basket, I remembered that I haven't butchered a fish since I was actually on Next Food Network Star and well—that fish is Nemo, you know? Or it could be."

"So the fish didn't make it onto all of the plates?" Mulch repeats and Bucket shakes his head mournfully.

"I was really looking forward to eating some fish, Mulch."

"Oh, I know," Mulch pats his fellow judge on the shoulder in commiseration and glares when Sven cuts him off with a thumbs down. "I'm just disappointed because this jalapeno vinaigrette is one of the tastiest things I've had this round, but there's just not much on the plate to judge."

And finally, we have Astrid Hofferson, what have you managed to prepare out of Tilapia, smoked gouda, pickled jalapenos, and lemonade powder?

"Today I've made for you a pan seared, lemon glazed tilapia filet with smoked gouda jalapeno poppers," her voice sounds fake, trembling in the pit of her throat and she coughs, staring at the judges like they're Hiccup, like their criticism is Hiccup's praise.

"The fish is perfectly cooked," Bucket raises his fork in cheers, "I'm glad I finally got some. And the lemon glaze is fantastic, just a little bit crunchy."

"I agree, Bucket," Mulch takes a second bite of a jalapeno popper, always a good sign. "And these poppers you have the plate are delicious as well, but they feel like two different dishes to me. There should be some sort of sauce to bring everything together."

"Right," Astrid nods, thinking of the half cooked confection on the stove, the general rushing panic of the last twenty minutes. She needs to do better in the next course, she can't afford to fall apart like this.

"Yes, it's…I think it's a rather good thing, it's two dishes for the price of one, quite a good deal!" Bucket exclaims through a mouthful of jalapeno popper before Mulch kicks him under the table and he forces his face placid, "but yes, it's not really a cohesive appetizer, I don't think."

Sven's thumb wavers for a millisecond before pointing straight up.

Astrid wants to be relieved, but the empty basket at her station taunts her. If a relatively simple basket tripped her up because she couldn't get cheese and fish to play, what's the main course going to do to her?

After an agonizing five minutes in the back with Eret making too jovial conversation and Dagur staring around like he can't decide who to taunt first, the judges come to a decision and invite the chefs back into the kitchen. The dome lid comes off of the plate at the corner of the judge's table and reveals Heather's half empty plate, arugula slightly wilted under the bright lights.

"Heather, you have been chopped."

Astrid shakes off a rush of relief, a lapse in focus that could definitely get her eliminated herself, and walks with the other chefs back to their stations. She's in the middle now, and it's suddenly crowded, too warm in the kitchen and too crowded. Hiccup would probably do something absurd. She's never _wanted _comic relief in the kitchen before.

"And you will have thirty minutes in the second round to make a delicious entrée out of Rocky mountain oysters, lobster claws, tallegio cheese, and vanilla pudding."

The clock starts and Astrid grimaces at the ingredients in front of her. Rocky mountain oysters, while unfamiliar, aren't as daunting as their reality suggests and she sets them aside for the time being, skipping the raw lobster claws and small, plastic pudding cup for the tallegio cheese, heavy in her hands and coated with a thick, light brown rind.

She had tallegio once, in Italy, and she searches her brain for a distinct memory, but it's all muted by good wine and everything else she sampled. She smells the rind, the strong cheesy scent permeating the inedible bit and sets it on her block, cutting it into rough quarters and tasting a bit, letting the mild, odd frutiness overlaying a creamy mouthfeel. The almost unpleasant scent, on the upper edge of tolerable.

She looks down at the lobster, at the deep fryer in the corner. She thinks of Berk, the charming beach shacks selling seafood right out of the water.

Lobster roll. Tartar sauce. She grapples for the pudding and opens it, tasting it with the back of a spoon and grimacing at the too sweet taste, the artificial vanilla flavor cloying at the tip of her tongue.

It needs acid, the pickle juice in the tartar sauce and…suddenly this doesn't seem so impossible. She jogs to the pantry, glaring at Eret when he gets in her way and grabbing a package of soft, white rolls.

The _oysters_ still plague her, and the last thing she wants is two different dishes on the same plate _again_. She stares at the spices, at the garlic powder and oregano and it hits her. Po' boy. There's no point to make this fussier than it needs to be, there's no point in overcomplicating it as everyone else is doing.

There's a moment of clarity, when she's watching Eret whisk furiously, the dragon tattoo on his arm bulging and twisting like a convulsing snake. Dagur is shaking a carbon dioxide canister over his head and sharpening a knife, all with wicked, inefficient speed and it hits her that this is hardly a competition at all. It's food, she gets food, she understands food, she's been focused on everything but the food for too long.

She doesn't need to focus on selling it, when the judges can taste it, it speaks for itself, and when they can't? She has Hiccup.

She races through the pantry, grabbing as many spices as she can hold and potatoes, lettuce and red onion and some heirloom tomatoes. There's no reason this has to be hard. There's no reason to think that a few unlikely ingredients can't mesh into something _delicious_. Screw fancy and perfect and all those other impossibilities, it can be delicious.

At her station she drops the claws in boiling water, blanching them as she takes apart the rocky mountain oysters and mixes a tempura batter with sparkling water and rice flour. Lightness, the tartar sauce is going to be heavy, she needs crisp in the batter that the bibb lettuce is too buttery to provide. It's all give and take, a dance of flavors.

She was a horrible cook when she first started, it's not something that she readily tells people, but the kitchen wasn't comfortable for her. She was much happier outside, climbing a tree, running wild through the neighborhood with her older brother, but then came the s'mores incident. She microwaved foil and burned chocolate, turned a perfectly delicious marshmallow into chalk and broke three graham crackers just getting them out of the package. Something had to change, she'd never been bad at anything before.

But then, after endless nicked fingers and ruined dinners, the flavors clicked, the way they worked together started to make sense. A whole team at her disposal, and it's the same team here, it was the same team in New York, the same team in Berk.

She drops the _oysters_ into the fryer first and glares at Dagur's stunning purple potato chips in the adjacent oil, sizzling crisp. She should have grabbed purple potatoes. If he's doing chips too, hers will look boring but…but they need to dip into tartar sauce, don't they? Maybe malt vinegar dress them, it's a seaside feast. A picnic.

That's right up Bucket and Mulch's alley.

She whips the pudding with some of the malt vinegar over a double boiler, a beurre blanc sort of treatment to temper it, mixing in finely grated tallegio and red onion, minced cornichon. It's perfect, tangy and creamy but still interesting, salty and sweet in just the right amount.

"Behind," Dagur calls, too close to her ear, manic grin inches away as he skirts behind her to the fryer, pulling out his chips and leaving the oil free. She races over with her own potatoes, dropping them in and checking the clock. Three minutes. It's going to be tight.

She's best under pressure and it's great to remember what it really feels like. She's learning to love the slow pace of her trailer kitchen, but there's something about _proving_ herself again. She's more than that kiss video.

She starts slathering lightly toasted rolls with a thin layer of the sauce, laying lettuce and thin sliced tomatoes on it before equal portions of the oyster and lobster. She tries one of each and they're perfect, meaty and fresh in turn.

Extra sauce on the side, chips salted and tossed with malt vinegar fresh out of the fryer and laid out on the simple white plates.

The timer stops and she looks around, glancing across Eret's obvious interpretation of a surf and turf and Dagur's tower of…something, purple chips arranged in halos around something that looks more like modern art than food. She's not cocky, she's confident.

The chefs start again with Eret, each looking for a moment at the perfect grill marks on the oysters, and the chef steps forward, "I made for you, today, a classic surf and turf with a vanilla hollandaise and tellagio mashed potatoes."

"My first though, Eret, is that it's a little bland looking," Mulch drags his fork through the hollandaise sauce, which now that Astrid notices is plated sloppily. Eret looks unkempt, the back of his neck sweaty and his ears red, and she wonders how close to the wire it was for him. "The oyster is cooked perfectly though, and you've got some perfect grill marks here."

"The sauce is a bit sweet, and I think it's a bit too meaty for a dessert," Bucket puzzles over the plate for a second.

"It's the entrée round, Bucket."

"Oh, then yes, the sauce is too sweet. I do like the potatoes though," he takes a hearty bite and Eret makes it halfway to smiling, almost back to his smug self, before Mulch takes a bite of the lobster and pulls a face.

"The lobster is overcooked though, it's rubber."

"I thought it was a garnish," Bucket whispers.

"It's one of the basket ingredients."

"Oh, then yes. It's inedible at this point."

Silent Sven bobbles for a moment, his fork dug into the oyster as he gives a thumbs up before he nudges the lobster out of the way and points his thumb down. Eret frowns.

Chef Dagur's dish comes next, a tower of cubed, red meat and sea green foam, surrounded by pink tinted pearls and purple potato chips.

"For a bit of a walk on the wild side," Dagur grins at Eret as he walks up, a predatory grin, a dominant one, and gestures broadly to the plates in front of him. "You have a rocky mountain oyster tartare, tenderized with pineapple enzymes and dressed with wasabi. This is topped with vanilla lobster caviar and a seaweed tallegio foam."

"Delicious," Bucket nods, taking a second large bite with a crunch of purple potato. "I was worried about texture with the oysters, but you've tenderized them quite nicely. It is a bit small for an entrée though."

"I'd agree with Bucket," Mulch nods, but he's eating too and Astrid tries her hardest not to doubt her simply assembled plate. "It's a bit small, but that's the only critique I really have. At first, I thought the lobster caviar were a bit sweet, but accented with the pineapple wasabi zing, they're a perfect counterpoint."

Sven's thumb sticks straight up.

Eret looks at Astrid nervously and she recognizes the look from cooking school. The 'is there any way we can bail ourselves out of this one?' and it's never been aimed at her. She sets her jaw and waits for her plates to be set in front of the judges.

"I wanted to take you all to New Orleans," Astrid steps forward, "you have a po' boy with a creole tartar sauce and a side of salt and vinegar chips." There's nothing else to explain, the silence lingers for a moment before Sven breaks it, a contented sigh in the back of his throat.

"You managed to elevate the ingredients without making them fussy, they maintain their freshness even while fried," Sven's voice isn't how she would have expected it, higher pitched and almost childlike as he takes another bite. Bucket and Mulch give a thumbs up.

00000


	12. Chapter 11

Astrid stares at her phone screen in her hotel room, showered and unreasonably exhausted as she perches on the edge of the bed. The check should be in the mail now, on its way across the country to San Diego, and she wonders just how far fifty thousand dollars will really stretch in the lives of a few thousand horses. Hiccup would know.

She looks at the clock and bites her lip, picking up the TV remote and flicking through the channels, stopping at HBO and staring at some random scene of some random movie that she knows she's seen but didn't take the time to remember. Hiccup texted her the first day she was here, asking if she landed safely, and she said yes and it was…brief. Brief and simple and almost disenchanting.

He's not really himself over text, curt and _nice_ and quiet, and maybe she needs his intonation spelled out for her. Or maybe some spell is broken.

She thinks back to the night before she left, the best—and honestly, the only—rejection of her life. Staying too late at Hiccup's house and falling asleep on his couch halfway through a second bottle of wine. He showed her his garage, the cheese aging on wide, handmade shelves and filling the room with a dense, savory haze. They woke up in the middle of the night and he drove her home to pack and kissed her goodbye and it was…

She should call him.

Winning Chopped isn't texting kind of news.

Really, she should call her parents first, but that doesn't have the same promise. She picks up her phone and calls the still unsaved number of her last sent text message, turning down the volume on the TV.

"Hello?" Hiccup picks up, breathing heavy, his voice strained and breathy and impossibly more nasal than normal. "I'm elbow deep in whey, is it important?"

"Oh, sorry Hiccup, I can call back—"

"Astrid!" A splash and a shuffle, and she can picture the large basin in his garage, remember the way it felt pressed against the small of her back as he leaned against her. "Astrid, hey, Astrid. What—Oh! Chopped was today, right, how did it go?"

She smiles in spite of herself, laying back against the stacked pillows at the head of her bed and staring at the stationary ceiling fan, "I thought you were elbow deep in whey."

"Oh, you know, just pulling tomorrow's mozzarella," he laughs, "it's—"

"Hey, if you're busy, I really can call back later." If she doesn't psych herself out like some scared teenager.

"No, I want to talk, just—I'm at a sensitive point—can I call you back?" He laughs, high pitched and nervous and she toys with the hem of her soft, old tee-shirt.

"Put me on speaker, I was just going to tell you about Chopped anyway."

"So you were calling to lecture me, right. I wasn't going to get a word in edgewise anyway—"

"It'll be good for you, a completely new experience."

The silence stretches. A click gives way to the rustle and gurgle of him working, his hands splashing back into that basin.

"Go ahead. I'm listening." His voice is further away, strained and muted and she clears her throat.

"So I'm going to skip the first two rounds, for the most part, all that you need to know is that my entrée was so good that Silent Sven _talked_."

"Silent Sven?" He's excited, an adorable elevation in his voice that spurs her onward. It's not bragging if it's true, and she made it true today. "You were judged by _the_ Silent Sven?"

"The Silent Sven. He liked my entrée so much that he talked, but you can see that part when it airs. The thrilling round was dessert—"

"Oh?" He grunts and her stomach twists strangely.

"I didn't realize mozzarella was so much work."

"I just lifted fifty pounds of curd, leave me alone. What happened in this dessert round? Start with the basket."

"So now you're telling me how to tell the story," she shakes her head and sighs, "the dessert basket was an absolutely disgusting pre-packaged brownie mix, mascarpone cheese, habanero chilies and Swedish fish."

"Ooh, baking mix, they made you bake. That never goes well."

"Oh! Oh and to preface this, this is the third round in a row forcing me to mix _seafood_ and cheese, it was ridiculous. The first round had tilapia and gouda, the second lobster and taleggio, and now gummy fish and mascarpone. I couldn't do anything without breaking rules. Ridiculous."

"That must have been horrible for you," he snorts. "Maybe we should do a show like that, I hand you cheese and force you to use it. I've never really," he pauses to grunt again and she starts flicking through the channels again in search of distraction, "understood that bias, you know? Cheese is good on everything."

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Yeah, yeah. Go ahead."

"So this hell basket, and I had no idea what to do, I haven't made brownies from a mix since I was a kid, and Dagur—"

"Deranged Dagur! You didn't tell me he would be there," Hiccup cuts her off, "I love that guy."

"He loves you too, he wouldn't stop heckling me about how handsome you are." She regrets it as soon as it slips out of her mouth, because no matter how true it is, no matter how annoying it was to have Dagur traipsing by her station every five seconds and commenting on how lucky she is to have Hiccup as an assistant, it's crossing some strange line to say it out loud.

She thinks he's handsome, but she's not quite sure she wants him to know that yet.

"That's…I don't know whether to be flattered or deeply concerned," his breath whisks over the speaker and he's walking, his footsteps echoing on his end of the line. "My garage doesn't have a lock on it."

"I'd look into a locksmith," she shakes her head, wet hair rasping against the decorative pillow cases behind her. "Anyway, I have these ingredients and I have no idea what to do, but then I remember those cheesecake brownie mixes. And it's obvious, a Mexican chocolate cheesecake brownie."

"Yeah, obviously."

She can practically feel him rolling his eyes, cocking his head and shrugging. She continues with the story, unaware of her point and not really concerned. It's nice just to talk, after the day she had.

"And then I have these Swedish fish too, and they've got this too sweet flavor that's trying to be cherry and falling _way_ short."

"Lingonberry."

"What?"

"They're _Swedish_ fish, the red ones are lingonberry flavored." He sets the phone back down and his voice drifts away a few feet, his breathing louder. "I figured you'd know that, as a big fancy chef."

"They didn't cover convenience store candy in culinary school." She smiles in spite of herself, wiggling her toes underneath the soft throw across the foot of the bed.

"That's a major gap in the curriculum."

"So. I have these apparently lingonberry gummies and mix them with black cherries—which I now know is a huge faux pas, apparently—"

"That actually sounds pretty delicious," he pauses, his end of the call momentarily silent. "And what did you do with that?"

"Ice cream." She's more confident about it now than she was then, whirring together pepto-pink goo with milk and heavy cream. "And a Swedish fish, blood orange sauce. It was actually, legitimately delicious."

"We should recreate this," he's excited, his voice elevated above the labored lilt. Suddenly the lean muscles of his arms that she couldn't help but notice make sense and her mouth waters. Mozzarella sounds delicious. She could probably still order pizza.

"We should," she pauses, smile tugging at her lips, "because it won me Chopped."

"You won!" He laughs, "I'm so happy for you—that's so great, not that I'm surprised, I always figured you'd win but…congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Where did Dagur mess up?" He laughs, "I'm just trying to imagine what he'd make out of all of that."

"I think he probably re-silenced Silent Sven," Astrid smirks, "at least until his taste buds grow back from all that habanero."

"When does it premier? Do you know?"

"February, I want to say," she shrugs and glances back at the TV, "but the check went to the Wild Horse Sanctuary. I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't let me see it."

"You actually went through with that?" He's quiet, reserved, his voice completely level and she wonders if she did something wrong.

"What? I asked you about charities, I didn't really have any in mind and—was it supposed to be a joke or something? Because your poker face is too good, Haddock—"

"No, no, no. It's…it's amazing that you'd actually do that, I don't know what to say."

"Thank you is a decent start," she laughs, too quiet, and sits up, leafing through the hotel recommendations for some pizza. "Just hearing you make mozzarella is making me order pizza."

"That's not fair, don't tease me. We haven't had delivery pizza in Berk since my dad ran Pizza Hut out of town," his voice dips into an eerily on point brogue, better over the phone. "It's not our way, Hiccup, we don't even know the owners."

"I'm sure he didn't say that."

"He said exactly that. Except it was more booming and meant to intimidate," he clicks the phone off of speaker and holds it to his ear, and the shift is palpable, like he's suddenly in the room with her.

She lets herself entertain that idea for a moment, Hiccup in her hotel room with her while they order pizza and chat about chopped. Maybe they wouldn't order in, maybe they'd go out, maybe they'd stop into Hooligan and see her old kitchen. There would have been a huge hubbub on Chopped though, it would have been worse than just playing the kiss reel again and again, they would have demanded a reenactment.

"So…when are you coming home—back! Sorry, when are you coming back?"

"I fly out in three days. I've got meetings with the network for the next two, they're considering signing me for a second season and I have to start hashing out the contract."

"Fun, fun," he's inside now, a tea kettle whistling in the background. "I hope you…I mean, as your guest star—"

"Star, you're hilarious." She laughs and it's not as cruel as it could be, as it probably should be.

"Fine, as your guest idiot, if you need to talk to me about anything contractual you can give me a call."

"I did tonight, didn't I?"

"You did." He sighs, "and I'm sorry to be the responsible one here—"

"Wow, what a shift."

"You are _snarky_ tonight, Astrid. Be careful with that, there's enough sarcasm on Hofferson House without you joining in."

She can hear the smile in his voice and rolls her eyes, "what are you doing that's so responsible?"

"I've got to go to bed," he sounds genuinely disappointed about it and she almost asks him what they'd be talking about if he stayed awake. "I've got to take a shift on the fishing boat tomorrow and be out in the freezing cold at the ass crack of dawn."

"I'm sure it won't be so bad."

"Speak for yourself, I'll still be half-frozen when you get back."

It would be all too easy to offer to warm him up. She says goodnight instead, chewing pensively on the inside of her cheek.


	13. Chapter 12

**Does it mean anything if I say that this is taking a turn for the bizarre? Because it so is. And I so love it. **

00000

Hiccup's clothes are frozen. His hair is frozen. His face is frozen. His boots are frozen to his pants and his lobster pinched hands are frozen to the cuffs of his jacket. The warm air of the store almost burns, like walking into a heatwave and he stops on the welcome mat, sighing and basking in it, his hands held over the vent.

Something rustles, loaded wheels on the floor and he scans the shop. Maybe Snotlout is actually early with his catch, for once in his life. It's not Snotlout, it's a mountain of a man—a Stoick sized man with even more hair—looming over his cheese counter, _molesting_ a brick of Maine Cheddar.

"We aren't open yet, I don't know how you got in here, but you're going to have to leave," he paces away from the door, his shoes slipping on the tile floor as he snatches the cheese brick away and examines those once clean cut corners. It's damaged, but still delicious and he tucks it into his pocket, promising to eat it later. He sure can't sell something like that, he has dignity.

The man doesn't move, looming over the counter and reaching a giant, gormless mitt towards a ball of mozzarella. One of those balls of mozzarella he pulled last night while talking to Astrid. Astrid's mozzarella. "Seriously, I'll call the cops, this is breaking and entering and…and frankly cheddar assault—"

"Drago Bludvist. The new butcher." He speaks slowly, in a voice so low that Hiccup has to strain to hear it.

"I didn't know we were getting a butcher. Did Gobber hire you?"

The man sneers and shrugs towards a shiny, new refrigerator case on the opposite wall, a uniformly red assortment of meat laid out on display.

"You're chatty," Hiccup glares and shoulders past the guy, stepping behind his counter and plopping into his well-worn office chair. "You know, I've been asking for a new case for six months, and you get one overnight."

Drago unloads what looks like an entire half of a cow into an adjacent freezer case and smacks the light on with the side of his fist. Hiccup glowers, stroking the destroyed corner of the cheese chunk in his pocket.

"How does Gobber know you?"

A grunt.

The single most infuriating grunt Hiccup has ever heard and he clenches frozen fists, forcing blood back into his fingers. One of the lobsters pinched his thumb so hard it bled that morning and, of course, it's a fisherman's injury, a _noble_ injury. Nobody paid mind to the fact that he spends most nights elbow deep in whey and salt water and that it's going to take forever to heal. He scrapes the bruise around the cut across his jacket pocket and winces, kicking his feet up onto the display case with a shower of crusty salt he ignores.

"Have you lived in Berk long? I've never seen you around."

"I moved back to take care of some unfinished business." Drago mutters, and Hiccup's brain hurts from the effort of _not_ rolling his eyes.

"Unfinished butcher business? What? Did you leave the bacon on a pig or something?"

Another grunt. Hiccup pulls the cheddar out of his pocket and takes a bite.

00000

"Can I just say that my daughter is your biggest fan?" A red-faced middle aged woman laughs and gathers her bags of cheese from the counter. "She talks about you all the time, and it's great for the whole family! She's always cooking now, before I could barely get her to make a grilled cheese for herself!"

"Can I suggest that provolone on rye for a grilled cheese, it's fantastic." He points to her bag and she laughs, fussing with the thick scarf tucked around her throat. 

"She's going to be furious, you know, that I met _the_ Charlie Haddock without her."

"What? Do you want a picture?" He means it as a joke but the woman lights up, setting her bags on the floor and fumbling a phone from her purse. "Oh, you actually…you actually want a picture?"

"I didn't want to bother you, but since you offered!"

"Uh, sure," he leans over the cheese counter and tries to forget all those orders from his father over the years to take a good school picture this time. He's never been photogenic, even as a supposedly cute little kid, and in an incredibly ill-timed, nausea inducing thought, he realizes that his dad is going to show Astrid all of those badly posed pictures. "It's not exactly test kitchen lighting in here but…"

She pats his arm like his grandma used to and holds the phone out in front of her, snapping a quick picture and sending it, presumably to her daughter.

"Green with envy, she's going to be just _green_ with envy. Don't be surprised if she's dragging me up here soon, what days do you work, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, the store is open seven days, but the cheese counter only runs Wednesday through Sunday."

The new butcher grunts across the store and Hiccup glares at him. "But the cheese is a week long draw. It's something that Berk is really known for now. Cheese. We have fish and cheese, and…well, vegetables in the summer but that's…that's about it."

Drago grunts again, obviously displeased.

"And you're really putting it on the map, dear!" The woman leans on the counter, chatting with him in a friendly way that would have made him think twice before Astrid. Berk isn't exactly a mecca for the single life, and well, women are rarely this excited about his cheese. "I have to ask, is Astrid around? No offense to you, but she's my favorite."

"Mine too," he blurts, leaning down slightly, away from Drago's range of hearing and faltering, "well…I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say anything but…she's in New York this week, talking to executives about a second season."

He almost mentions Chopped but decides against it. There's something very nice about having a secret with Astrid, and he's fully aware that being this excited about it is also very pathetic.

"Your secret is safe with me," the woman laughs, her phone dinging with the out of the box text tone, "oh! That's my daughter," she flashes the phone at him, a string of capital letters on the screen. "Very excited, as you can see." Another chime, "yep, she's dragging me back up here next weekend. Good thing it's only a two hour drive!"

"Maybe next time I can talk you into some of my fontal," he nods at her overfull paper bag, "but I think you should be set for the week."

"Oh, more than set. So much of this just _hopped_ in there," she waves one last time before disappearing through the front door with a cheery 'see you next week' and a jingling of bells. The gust that follows the closing door reminds Hiccup of the winter wind and his long morning on the boat and he shivers, tugging his sweatshirt tighter over his shoulders and shoving his hands deep into the pockets. That cut on his thumb is going to burn like hell later when he's rinsing curd for Edam.

He wonders if Astrid likes Edam. He hasn't made it in around a year, it wasn't a great seller, but sometimes a man has to spend some time on his own personal favorites. Whether she likes it or not, there's something wonderful about sharing something he made with someone who will really _really_ appreciate it. None of Snotlout's stuffed face grunting, none of his father's muted approval. Actual, genuine, lap sitting, making out appreciation.

"I see why you sell so much cheese." Drago grunts from behind his shiny, new display counter.

"You just have to build up a customer base, in a small town like this. When they know you, they trust your product," he pulls that mangled block of cheddar out of his coat pocket and unwraps it, shaving a strip from the smushed corner and chewing on it pensively, "even when your product is…misshapen."

"What are you saying about my meat?"

Thirteen year old Hiccup snickers in the back of his mind.

"I'm not saying anything about your meat." He shrugs and shaves another long curl of cheese off of the block. "You've sold what? Three briskets and a pork roast today? It's not a big day, but that's…people do get sick of fish at some point. I guess."

"I was born sick of fish."

"Maybe we have something in common," Hiccup looks up, and he thinks he could forgive the big brusque man for the mangling of the poor, poor cheese block. Drago scowls, curling his lip and reaching towards the knife block almost habitually, like he can silence Hiccup like the last defenseless little cow that looked at him funny. "Or not."

Grunt.

"You're always grunting. Is that communication where you're from?" Hiccup rolls his eyes, "what? That doesn't earn a grunt? Always a wily one, messing with the grunt laws before I even get a handle on them."

Hiccup looks at the door like he can make Gobber appear. Gobber or another customer or…or Toothless, escaped the barn, popping by to nag Hiccup about his lack of morning ride. He glances at the time, popping one more sharp curl of cheese into his mouth and letting it melt on his tongue, oily and salty and almost oaky. The taste of his shelves and his garage and all of those hopes and dreams aged into it.

And for just a second, he lets himself think of his cheese reaching out further, beyond newly sullen grocery stores with grouchy, grunting butchers. Beyond its pedestal on Astrid's show, beyond housewives' daytrips, beyond Berk. In the moment, it feels possible.

00000


	14. Chapter 13

**They're the cutiest. **

00000

It sounds so casual on the phone in baggage claim. _'Drop by on your way home.'_ Like they do that all the time, or something, but as soon as Astrid walks through Hiccup's front door, all she can see is that dining room chair. And that couch. And the doorway where he got in one last kiss before driving her home.

"Hey," he smiles when she unzips her jacket and tosses it faux-casually on the arm of the couch. "Congratulations!"

He almost hugs her, his arms temporarily wide before falling slack by his sides. "How was your flight? How was the drive?" He laughs, high pitched and almost grating, "who am I kidding? It was awful, you should have been here before…eleven thirty seven. Traffic?"

"Mind if I sit down?" She laughs, setting her purse down with her jacket and he steps out of her way too quickly.

She almost kisses him again to calm him down, but something stops her. She hasn't quite decided yet, Eret's joking comments about the cheese monger back home still heavy in her mind.

"Yeah, no. Of course," he's taller than she remembers, and not quite as scrawny as she built him up to be in her head. Her gaze lingers a moment too long on the clean shaven line of his jaw and she wonders if it had anything to do with her. He shaved for her. That means something somehow. "So…have you eaten?"

Her stomach growls and answers for her.

"No, I was going to get something on the way, but—but traffic."

Honestly, she'd been sort of excited to see him.

"Well, as you know, I have cheese," he gestures towards the garage, where he showed her his dry-aging room. Where he kissed her in his dry-aging room. He flushes slightly, "and wine."

"Sure, I'll take some wine." She laughs, and this is probably the first time she's been so indirect. She remembers being direct and bites her lip, accepting the full glass he pours and examining the bottle he sets in the middle of the table. "Thank you."

"Now…now it just feels like I'm getting you drunk." He walks back over to his kitchen, pulling a cast iron skillet out of the cupboard and setting it on his old gas stove with a comforting clang. "Grilled cheese?"

"Grilled cheese?" She raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of wine, "I haven't had a grilled cheese in years."

"All this?" He waves his arm in front of himself and starts rifling through his fridge, "built on grilled cheese."

"You said that, when you were telling me about your mom's sharp cheddar."

"You remembered," he pauses for a second to smile at her, crooked and adorable and uncomfortably kissable. She takes a sip of wine and lets it percolate.

They could just be coworkers. He could have been right about the night before she left, she could have just been kissing him because she was nervous and he was supportive. And hot.

He was supportive and had amazing warm hands. He was supportive and solid and kissed her like he cherished her, like he could feel her teetering and wanted to tug her into him. He was supportive and since when is that a bad thing?

"Of course I remembered."

"So. Because you'll actually appreciate it," he glances at her over his shoulder, red-cheeked and pointedly changing the subject. "I have a new fontal I've been working on, and with some of this cheddar I started another night…" He trails off and starts cooking, charmingly at home in his own kitchen.

He slices bread off of a nicely golden Pullman loaf and butters it, plopping it down in the heating pan and covering one side with first creamy fontal, then shards of sharp, white cheddar. "Here's the real trick, are you listening?" The grin over his shoulder is almost cocky and she nods before she can help herself as he pulls down a metal bowl with a flourish and sets it over the cheesy slice of bread. "You gotta dome it."

"Doming? Is that the technical term?" She laughs and he points towards her with a metal spatula.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," he lectures. "Drink your wine."

"I thought you weren't trying to get me drunk."

"You made fun of my dome, I hope you get plastered." He lifts the bowl and assembles the sandwich, pressing it together with the spatula, and her eyes trace down his back, lingering a little too pointedly on his ass.

She wishes she'd had a chance to grab it last time. He shifts sideways and the fabric tightens across the curve. She takes a genuine gulp of wine and leans her head on her hand.

"Making fun of your dome? That's vaguely sexual."

He drops the sandwich with a swear and it bounces off his shirt before landing almost neatly on a plate.

"My shirt is clean, I promise," he sets the plate down on the table in front of her and looks down at the square grease stain on his pale blue button down shirt. "Was clean."

She picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, smiling to herself as he fusses over the stain, but all of those thoughts evaporate at the explosion of cheesy, nutty flavor across her tongue. She moans in spite of herself, more hungry than she'd realized, and takes another bite, "that's…that's the best fontal I've ever had. It's got that salty nuttiness and…"

"You're bad for my ego, you know," he laughs, and she looks up with the full intent to say something about how she didn't think it could be inflated any further, but the thought dies in her throat.

Hiccup's shirt is halfway up his torso, a plain of long, lean stomach too appealing in the muted midnight light of his kitchen. She takes another slow bite of the sandwich, like the view could be improved by cheese, and takes in the trim, corded lines of his stomach. His hipbone…his hipbone is absolutely—

"You're enjoying that sandwich?"

"Hmm?" She jerks her eyes back to his face and swallows. "What was that?"

He drops the hem of his shirt back against his stomach and she blinks, taking a long sip of her wine and holding eye contact with him. He narrows those big green eyes at her, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Good sandwich?"

"Awesome. That fontal is…what are you doing?"

He's unbuttoning his shirt, revealing little patches of pale, freckled flesh, and she sets down the sandwich, crossing her arms.

"I'm changing my shirt, if that's ok with you," he laughs, popping the last button from its hole and sliding the shirt back off of his shoulders.

She swallows hard at the appearance of those shoulders, those surprisingly strong shoulders that she felt before but somehow didn't have the presence of mind to visualize. He loops the shirt over his arm and stares at her for a moment, eyes still narrowed, like he's trying to _decipher_ her. Her eyes dip down again without her volition, down the shallow but defined groove in the center of his stomach.

He crosses the distance between them in two big strides, leaning down and kissing her. His hand cups the back of her head and she reaches for those shoulders, fingernails digging into the smooth skin of his shoulder blades.

It's instantly too hot, his lips like fire against hers, always more talented than they should be. His hands slide to her shoulders, her waist, tugging her out of the chair and holding her against him. He gasps into her mouth when her hands slide down his back, landing on the small of his warm, bare back and pulling him further into her.

He pulls away, and all that emerald is replaced by inky black.

"You were staring at me."

"No, I—you took your clothes off," she smacks at his chest, her hand pausing over his throbbing heartbeat. "We're coworkers."

"I _don't_ care," he laughs and she feels it more than hears it, vibrating through her palm. "Plus, aren't they selling this already?" He gestures between them, his fingers glancing flirtatiously across her waist.

"The network wants you back next season. They're giving me another season and—and this could get really awkward." Astrid holds herself away from him, trying to be mature about all of this and failing.

He kisses her again, slower, his mouth working carefully against hers.

"That's not going to convince me to sleep with you—"

"You…you appreciate my fontal," he cups her chin, swiping her cheek with a slightly callused thumb. "No one appreciates my fontal. Everyone calls it—that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what my dumb cousin says about my cheese." He touches his lips to her forehead and sighs, "I don't want to just sleep with you. I want…I want your opinion on my parmesan when it's done aging. I want to learn how to make steak like you do, I want…I want to get you so far from a kitchen that you don't know what to do with yourself and find common ground with you. I want…" He squeezes her shoulder, hard enough to be bracing.

She flings her arms around his neck and he stumbles backwards, laughing against her lips.

"Bedroom," she mutters into his cheek and his hands find her waist, clenching in the fabric of her sweater.

"I just said I didn't want to sleep with you," he laughs, but his hand is sliding under her shirt, warm against her skin. "Weren't you listening to my touching little speech there?"

"Who said anything about sleeping?"

00000

**And Charlie apparently didn't want smut. It was his decision, and he was so busy being adorable…**


	15. Chapter 14

**Guys. I thought I was going to write their smut, I really did…but, but well, Charlie and Astrid's whole love affair is public and dangit, they want their smut to be private. Apparently. **

**And it's probably so cute we'd all die of cavities. **

00000

When Hiccup wakes up, hugging his pillow and squinting against the light streaming through his East facing window, he thinks he's going crazy. It smells like bacon. And not burning bacon, not like he had a midnight cooking accident after drinking too much wine and forgetting dinner. Delicious bacon. He rubs his head and waits for the hangover, because that's the only explanation for why his room feels so _different_, right?

He sits up and looks around, at the pile of clothes by the bed, his constantly half-open closet. Muddy barn boots in the corner. A red bra hanging off of his bedside table.

Oh.

Right.

Astrid.

He pulls the covers around his waist, his naked waist, and remembers the night before in such excruciatingly wonderful detail that his cheeks flush. She came over too late on the way back from the airport. He made her a grilled cheese, he…he _stripped_ and she didn't laugh at him. He kissed her and said too much and she herded him back to the bedroom like she'd been thinking about it as long as he has.

And then, well—

The door opens halfway and Astrid leans her head in, wearing his sweatshirt that used to be on the chair in the corner with her hair loosely braided over her shoulder. She's holding a cup of coffee and looks completely at home, like this is a Sunday morning ritual.

"You're awake," she points behind her at the kitchen, a pan he hasn't dusted off in months sitting on his favorite burner of the stove. "I'm making breakfast."

"I can smell that."

"I woke up starving," she smiles, taking a sip of the coffee and looking almost too pointedly at his bare torso. "I hope you don't mind, your fridge is pretty bare."

"I work in a grocery store," he laughs, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. He wants to drag her back to bed, because last night was too good to be a one-off, too fun and too nice to be some lucky hook-up with a romance novel toting tourist. He's had plenty of those, enough to know that this is different. He said too much last night, and he won't lie, he was influenced by how late it was and how much he missed her and how pretty she was—is—but he meant all of it.

"True, I guess you don't really have to think about stocking up," she drums her fingers on her coffee cup, "are you getting up any time soon? I don't want to burn anything."

"Sure. Yeah, I am just—can I have a minute?" He knows that she saw it all last night, more than saw it. So much more than saw it. But there's something different about it being morning, about her being so comfortable in his clothes with his 'Kiss Me I'm Cheesy' mug.

She pouts, "fine."

"What? Were you just coming in here to watch me get up?" He laughs, the sound dying in his throat when she shrugs.

"I'll get back to breakfast then, if you're so shy," she smiles at him, an accepting but irritated sort of smile, and turns back towards the kitchen.

He marvels for a second at her legs, exposed nearly entirely by his old sweatshirt, and then he marvels at her bravery, cooking bacon with that much bare skin exposed. He climbs out of bed, and pulls on a clean pair of boxers and a tee shirt from his dresser before following her into the kitchen. The cutting board is clean and covered with neatly organized piles of chopped vegetables and there's a second cup set out next to the mostly full coffee pot.

"You found everything alright," he laughs, leaning back against the counter and attempting to smooth his bedhead. It's a lost cause, and he gives up, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "You don't have to cook, you know."

"I really don't mind," she shrugs and pulls the bacon out of the pan onto a waiting plate covered in paper towels. It's crispy and perfect and he steps around her to grab a piece, breaking it in half and taking a pensive bite.

"You make bacon taste better."

"You're ridiculous. It's just good bacon," she picks up the other half of the slice and eats it, dumping the bacon grease from the pan into the trash. "Where'd you get it anyway? I've been at a major loss of a decent butcher since I got here."

"Oh," he frowns, "there's some new guy at the store, Dargo Bloodyfist or something. Real chatty guy."

"Coming from you?" She raises an eyebrow at him and steps around to open the fridge, pulling out his carton of milk and pouring some into a bowl he hadn't yet noticed.

"Grunts all the time. Like it's a sport."

She reaches for a wooden spoon and he stops her with a hand on her wrist. "How much are you making? You really don't have to."

"I told you, I'm hungry." She shrugs his hand off and grabs the spoon anyway, glugging some vegetable oil into the same bowl and stirring it carefully. "Pancakes and bacon and an omelette. I might even share."

"Is there anything I can do?" He nearly spills his coffee when she turns and kisses him, her nose butting almost roughly against his.

"You're really sweet for offering."

"You know how to make a guy feel useless."

"Isn't that kind of your job?" She nudges him with her hip, "You're the hapless loser that makes people at home think they can cook?"

"Harsh," he laughs. "That's horrible. True, but you don't have to say it out loud like that."

"I'm kidding," she pushes him out of the way with a gentle arm, and he wonders if this is just the new normal. If his life has turned into a bunch of separate instances of being in Astrid's way in various kitchens. He kisses her temple and she pauses for a moment before smiling at him, and he can hardly reconcile this innocent moment with the night before. The way she said his name, Hiccup not Charlie, like she was there for _him_, not the Charlie Haddock he was supposed to be.

"Ok." He steps away when she spoons some of the batter into the pan still greased with bacon drippings, walking over to the other side of the stove. "What kind of cheese were you thinking for the omelette?"

"Cheese?" She doesn't look at him, spooning more batter into the pan to form three evenly spaced pancakes.

"You weren't going to use cheese." He sets his mug down, "well that's…comforting, I guess. You aren't the perfect woman. I can relax about the fact I haven't showered."

"What?"

"You were going to make an omelette without cheese. I just…my whole view of you is changed."

"That's not fair," she crosses her arms, his sweatshirt riding distractingly up her hip, almost enough to end this stupid discussion entirely. "You have some parmesan in the fridge I was going to sprinkle over the top."

"Like a _garnish_?" He laughs, "I'll be right back."

He winces at the cold garage floor on his feet, picking across the concrete to a shelf of gouda he hasn't touched for a couple of years, grabbing a small disk and walking back to the kitchen. Astrid is staring at him, shivering slightly at the gust of cold air and rolling her eyes when he holds the cheese out towards her like a proud father.

"You know, not everything has to be cheesy, right?"

"I know," he sets the roll on the cutting board and works a knife through the thick rind, trimming it off and shaving the cheese into thin pieces. "But it's eggs, Astrid. Is there even a point in eating eggs without cheese?"

"What did you go find that's so special, anyway?" She reaches over his arm and grabs a shard, popping it into her mouth. Her blasé expression melts along with the cheese and she shrugs. "Aged Gouda. That's…"

He kisses her, the sharp salty tang leaking through the seam of her lips. She sighs and relaxes into him, her hand falling to his waist and pressing the cool metal handle of a spatula into his side. Her nose twitches and she pulls back.

"Burning." She explains, stepping back to the pancakes and flips them, and they're all a perfect shade of golden brown. "Just in time."

"Did you just smell the pancakes burning?" he shaves a bit more cheese and wraps the rest in plastic, setting it on the otherwise empty top shelf of his fridge. "Because that's insane."

"Maybe my nose works because everything I eat isn't drowning in stilton."

"That's just a cruel generalization," he walks around her to the fridge and pulls out the carton of eggs. "Four left, should I just make them all?"

"I said I was cooking, I'll do it in a minute."

"I'm pretty sure I can mix some eggs and milk. Even though I'm the hapless loser."

She eyes him. "Not too much milk, it makes the eggs dense."

"You can police my milk usage." He rolls his eyes and holds out a bowl, watching as she pours a few tablespoons into the bottom of it. "There? Do you trust me to whisk eggs?"

"I—you could really go sit down. I don't mind cooking, really. It's…it's nice to do something nice for you after last night. And the night before I left," she looks away, sliding those first three perfect pancakes onto a plate and scooping three more into the pan. "And the whole week in between, frankly, chopped was…it was more stressful than I thought it would be, and everyone was just _expecting_ me to win, but you were so honestly happy for me, it was just—it was nice."

"To be fair, I was sort of expecting you to win too." He steps up to her and tilts her chin towards him with his finger, "and you don't owe me breakfast, _even_ after last night."

"I trust you with the eggs," she mutters, chewing on her lower lip before kissing him. Brief again, too brief, like she's trying to get used to the idea.

Of course she takes over eventually, dissatisfied with how much oil he puts into the pan but thankfully happy with how he whipped the eggs. The omelet comes out perfectly done and deliciously cheesy and Astrid is smiling in a wonderfully mischievious way when she picks up the grater and grates a bit of parmesan over it anyway.

"There. For _garnish_."

And he wants to be mad, but the way she's holding the cheese grater does something strange to him. She's sure with it, sure in a way that she wasn't last night when she pulled back and admitted that it's been a while. Sure like after he kissed her back, telling her that he didn't care, that she wasn't out of practice in any way he noticed.

"That…it looks good."

She scoffs and pinches a bit of parmesan stuck to the inside of the grater and pops it into her mouth, her eyes fluttering shut. He swallows hard, and when she catches him staring, she smiles.

"Do you want some?"

"I'm just about to have some," he gestures towards his plate, but she's laughing and offering him some cheese on the tip of her finger. He doesn't eat it quickly enough, apparently and it falls, delicate little shavings catching in his stubble. He reaches up to wipe it off but she beats him to it, licking it off. Her lips linger for a second before trailing down the side of his neck as her hands slide under his shirt and push it up his chest. "I thought you were hungry."

"I am." She tugs his shirt over his head and drops it on the floor before picking up the grater again and pushing him back against the counter. She wields the parmesan like a weapon, gripping it almost ominously before shredding a sprinkling of cheese across his chest.

00000


End file.
